Although at the beginning of the legislature it was not part of the Government’s prioritiesthe demand for “singular financing” for Catalonia has been gaining weight in the order of priorities of Pere Aragones. He has done it to the point that the president of the Generalitat has used his christmas speech pronounced this Tuesday, Sant Esteve’s Day, to set 2024 as the year in which the Government must “agree” with the central government this new financing system to put an end to “an unbearable fiscal deficit” that weighs down the Catalan administration. The final objective, to have more resources for health, education, workers, dependency and the fight against sexist violence, he has specified.
The president had been talking about financing for a few weeks and, in the investiture agreement between the PSOE and ERC, it was agreed to create a bilateral commission to address this matter. However, the speech delivered this Tuesday takes a leap in quality in the Government’s demand, since it sets next year as the maximum period to achieve it. That is, it is no longer a demand in a medium-term horizon, as the agreed referendum could be, but rather a short demand.
Aragonès has already outlined what this unique financing should be like and it basically involves taking Catalonia out of common regime that it shares with the rest of the autonomous communities to get closer to a special regime like the one they have Euskadi and Navarra. His proposal would be to give full powers to the Catalan tax agency – created by the Statute, but with limited powers today – to manage All the taxes that are collected in Catalonia. In fact, he has committed to having a proposal ready before the month of April, the drafting of which he has already entrusted to the Minister of Economy, Natàlia Mas.
It remains to be seen what margin it has Pedro Sanchez to negotiate this matter. During his visit last week to Barcelona, the President of the Government opened the door to new financing, and has opened himself several times to a reform of the system that affects the entire autonomous map, but from here to removing Catalonia from the common regime there is a great distanceprobably unaffordable for the PSOE due to the commotion it would generate in communities governed by the PP and even in socialist autonomies. For Aragonès, however, any outcome has potential: if he achieves it, it will be a triumph to showcase; If not, it will be a grievance to become one of their electoral assets for the parliamentary elections scheduled for February 2025 at the latest.
Budgets and Rodalies
The economic and social issue has had great weight in this year’s speech. The president has also asked for “responsibility and commitment” from the opposition to approve the Generalitat Budgets for 2024 because they are “essential to continue moving forward.” “I ask the parliamentary groups and I am convinced that we will all be up to the task,” she said.
I ask for responsibility and commitment from the parliamentary groups and I am convinced that we will all be up to the task.
President of the Generalitat
If he achieves these budgets, he will have free rein to exhaust the mandate. But, just in case he doesn’t make it and the elections end up late, he has also taken advantage of the Christmas speech to try to get his chest out. the management of your Government. Thus, he has spoken of the “big goals” achieved the “lowest unemployment rate in 15 years”; the increase in teachers, health personnel and Mossos d’Esquadra; the industrial investments achieved -such as that of Lotte Energy-, and the transfer to the Generalitat of the powers in Rodalies and the Minimum Vital Income -both agreed upon, but still to be finalized-.
Despite defending his administration, the president has not shied away from two more complicated issues for the Government for the wear that are generating: the management of the drought and the earthquake generated by the poor results of the PISA report. Regarding the lack of water, he has warned that after the “extraordinary commitment of peasants and farmers” an “effort from the rest of society” will now be required to avoid excess consumption, while in the educational field he has promised “even more efforts” to improve the system.
Referendum and amnesty
This year’s Christmas speech will not be remembered for big proclamations or announcements about the ‘procés’. The president congratulated himself on the amnesty, in full process in Congress, and has trusted that it will be approved and will be applied “fully” despite all the obstacles that the right and a part of the judiciary will put up. About the referendum, nothing out of the usual script. Aragonès wants a “negotiation process with the State” to be opened in 2024 so that Catalonia “freely decide your future”. But unlike the demand for new financing, the deadlines here are less strict.
For those who consider that the demand for an agreed referendum is going nowhere because the PSOE rejects it frontally, the president has offered his leading argument for this matter: they also “said that amnesty was impossible” and now it is being processed in Congress. In short, for the head of the Government the route of the referendum will be a ‘slowly but surely’.
Third year of own label
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When he became president in May 2021, Aragonès wanted to introduce some new details to try to give yourself your own stamp. For example, the corporate color of the Generalitat changed – from the blue that was associated with convergent times to white -, and it also changed the christmas speech. To distance himself from the rest of the regional presidents, he had him migrate from December 30, as was customary, to the 26th, a holiday in Catalonia by Sant Esteve. This was his third speech in the new format.
In addition, he made the speech itinerant and each year it is in a location with symbolic value. This time she has done it from King Martí’s deposit, in the Barcelona district of Sant Gervasi-Bonanova. A way to claim the importance of water management in the middle of the drought. A drought that will mark the final stretch of his mandate and that will condition his re-election as president.