Autumn is traditionally the time for preparing budgets in all administrations, read State, Generalitat and Barcelona City Council. Every year has its eagerness, and this 2022 is no less. On the contrary. The cocktail that is generated with the inflation crisisthe proximity of election cycle and, above all in Catalonia, the Exit of Junts from the Government They rule out any peaceful path. Add, in addition, that the negotiation of the General State Budgets (PGE) will coincide, in a new calendar crossing, with the last throes of the dialogue table, before reaching the very electoral year 2023.
Eyes are focused on CKD, the key player in the General State Budgets, those of the Generalitat and those of Barcelona. The Republicans are in the process of landing in the monocolor Government (plus three independents) and from the very moment that Junts’ militancy sanctioned his departure from the Executiu, all eyes were directed towards the Catalan budgets.
The key issue in the accounts of the Generalitat is if ERC ends up negotiating and agreeing with the PSC. It is the scenario desired by the socialists and by Junts, for that of going to the elections throwing the scarecrow of the tripartite around the corner.
Given this, the first action of ERC is to draw a firewalls between the Catalan budgets and those of the State. It is the way to prevent Republican support for the bills from costing only the PSOE the reciprocal vote in Parliament.
Against the media story
Once this is done, the Presidency of the Government tries to stop the media story that takes for granted, and even as ‘normal’, that Junts does not support the accounts that they themselves have designed. ERC wants to generate pressure on Junts and get their support, which would save them the trouble of choosing between the PSC and the budget extension.
It is still early days, but all Republican officials, even in private, reject any pact of this caliber – the budgets are, basically, a one-year government program – with the PSC. They consider that the ERC and the PSC are in opposing trenches and that as long as the political conflict is not resolved, there is no option for an entente in broad terms. Add, furthermore, that Esquerra and the Socialists are fighting to win the municipal elections in May.
The president of the Generalitat will seek to influence the PSOE without giving wings to the PSC
With regard to the PGE, it is worth noting ERC’s acceptance that its strategy has failed. At the beginning of the Spanish legislature, the Republicans drew up a scheme of tight bubbles, for which the contents of the dialogue table for the conflict did not appear in that of the most pecuniary issues, such as the PGE. The lack of enthusiasm of the PSOE at the dialogue table has led to a change in tactics by the ERC. If Pedro Sánchez wants budgets, he will have to satisfy the Republicans in two aspects. The causes still in force exalted positions and pro-independence deputies for 1-O and, above all, the reform of the crime of sedition.
To attract the Republicans, Pedro Sanchez has assured his own that he is willing to carry out the modification of the crime of sedition to make it equal to that applied in other countries, although believes that there is not a sufficient majority in Congress right now to agree on a text, given the differences between the Catalan independence parties themselves or between United We Can and En Comú Podem.
The PGEs
In the Government they take it for granted that ERC will flirt with submit an amendment to the entirety of the PGE. His deadline is next week: Friday at two in the afternoon. Then they can withdraw it before the vote, on the 27th, as they have done for many other years. In Moncloa, President Sánchez has “the desire to negotiate & rdquor; the accounts, those of the Executive and those of the Generalitat.
“What you need to know is [Oriol] Junqueras wants to do it here and there & rdquor ;, the Chief Executive told his advisers. In the socialist caucus in Congress, the deputies consider that Junqueras has pressured Aragonès to break the alliance with Junts because he has decided to launch “a takeover bid on the ‘comuns’ & rdquor; before the municipal elections in May. “He is fighting for that electoral space. He has become nervous seeing the PSC doing well in the polls and has decided to give that blow of authority & rdquor ;, say sources from the parliamentary group who do not rule out that Junqueras redirect the situation after “a week pretending that he does not need or want the PSC & rdquor ;.
Colau, with elections in May, attends the budget pulse with less tension than ERC and the Socialists
in the executive rule out the possibilitywith which he brags Junqueras, to extend the Catalan accounts. The Generalitat will receive an additional 3,100 million euros for the coming year due to the increase in the financing that the autonomous communities will receive, an amount that will be received as long as there are new accounts. “But if Aragonès is already negotiating them with the minister [Raquel] Sanchez. Let’s see if they are clarified with the stage representation of these days and we get down to work & rdquor ;, point out sources from the PSOE parliamentary group.
Barcelona’s town hall
In the government of Ada Colau, the 2023 budgets generate a relative concern. With the municipal elections only eight months view, The possibility that there is no agreement with the opposition and that it is time to extend the accounts is not presented as a drama: it usually happens with the polls so close.
But for now the option of a pact still on the table and more in a mandate in which the three previous accounts were approved in a vote, unlike the previous one, in which Colau was unable to carry out any of them in an ordinary vote due to lack of support.
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In the current mandate, Barcelona en Comú and the PSC add 18 votes, they need a partner that brings them closer to the 21 absolute majority. In the three exercises previous, ERC has been the support decisive (although not the only one) either with a yes or an abstention.
Last year, Ernest Maragall he threatened to vote against, but ERC forced him to abstain and thus allow the accounts to see the green light as a complement to the agreement with the ‘comuns’ in Parliament. A difficult drink for the veteran leader, who this year does not seem willing to get into a similar mess. Now the logic of last year could happen again, if there is an agreement in the Catalan Chamber.