Pedro Sánchez’s offer to independence is more self-government in the face of the referendum and more financial capacity in the face of a fiscal pact for Catalonia. Political and financial autonomy are consubstantial, which is why, apart from the amnesty law and the “misunderstandings” between the Spanish Government and Junts, the key to the legislature is in the reform of the financing system and it is managed by the new first vice-president María Jesús Montero in the way that most interests the PSOE.
Since his investiture, Sánchez has made it clear that the singularity for Catalonia is in the reunion folder, not in the box. Together, the ERC has three negotiation tables but they do not ask Sánchez the dichotomy “the box or the Government”. The PSOE is clear. The distribution of resources will be addressed with all communities; the cancellation of the Generalitat’s debt agreed with ERC will be extended to all the autonomous regions – the formula is as green as the financing -; and the transfer of the minimum vital income or commuter trains is made available to those who claim it.
A fair funding is the “most urgent”, admits the converging soul of Junts, even if the focus remains on the amnesty, the mediator and the PSOE’s parliamentary dependencies. And, from the Palau de la Generalitat, ERC is trying to position itself in the trenches of a battle for resources that can start as a bilateral negotiation in compliance with the pacts and end in a multilateral sudoku, as defined by Pedro Solbes in 2009.
It is evidence that the financing law of the autonomous regions has never been modified without the leadership of Catalonia, but leadership is one thing and the distribution of funds is another. Nor has it ever been done apart from the party that holds the presidency of the Generalitat. It is a negotiation between governments. So who has all the trump cards, or may lose more, on the pro-independence front is Pere Aragonès.
The reforms of 1993, 1996, 2001 and 2009 bear the seal of CiU. Although the current system was designed by Pedro Solbes and Antoni Castells, it responds to the pact of the Statute of Artur Mas and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. It is the exception. Placing each adjustment in the calendar, it is concluded that the funding has served to satisfy conjunctural needs arising from an election. The current model has been out of date for seven years, waiting for this conjuncture. Has it arrived or is it inevitable?
Two circumstances have marked all the negotiations: the approval of the budgets and the position of Catalonia. In 2012, Mas’s request to Mariano Rajoy for a fiscal pact turned into an independence process; between 2014 and 2017, Cristóbal Montoro first defended himself in that “there was no cake” to distribute and, then, he left the experts’ report in the drawer, with as many private votes as the commission had.
Five general elections and a motion of no confidence in the last eight years are not the stage for a high-voltage negotiation. Vice-president Montero presented an offer marked by the adjusted population last term, which was rejected. The most difficult still comes with the current electoral cycle: eleven communities in the hands of the PP and the demands, separately, of ERC and Junts.
Montero now faces, strengthened as number two of the central government and the PSOE, what she calls a “multilateral debate” with the cards marked. The Sánchez administration has taken steps towards fiscal harmonization and avoiding the dumping encouraged by the Community of Madrid. Terminology is important. Harmonization does not go well with the singularity that President Aragonès claims.
On the other hand, demanding compliance with the criterion of ordinariness, introduced in the Statute and which the sentence of the Constitutional Court did not change, can displace that of solidarity in the redistribution of wealth and feed the classic grievances between communities. And in parallel with territorial interests, a new plebiscite electoral sprint for the PP and independence up to the Catalans. Aragonès wants to avoid the trap of the “independence for resources” exchange, but even Junts has understood that, in the absence of forces and a referendum, with more economic capacity and punctual trains, the meantime is better off.
