It was June 20, after the municipal elections and at the gates of the general elections, when the ‘counsellor’ of the Presidency, Laura Vilagraannounced that the Government had launched the 2024 budget machinery, whose approval would mean the definitive passage for Pere Aragones can exhaust the legislature despite its parliamentary minority. But in Palau they are beginning to assume that investiture of Pedro Sánchez It will torpedo the vocation of being able to have them before the end of the year.
“Things are complicated because the information that the State has to provide us arrives late,” they lament from those around the ‘president’. Last Friday the ‘counsellor’ of Economy, Natalia Mas, has already tightened the screws on the Government with this issue, demanding by letter what the income forecast of the financing model and the deficit objective will be. Without this data, they say, they cannot put a proposal on the table of the opposition groups to begin exchanges of views. It is also up in the air whether, as a result of the investiture negotiations, there will be any agreement to reduce Catalonia’s debt with the State. ERC set reducing the fiscal deficit as one of the conditions, in addition to the amnesty and the transfer of Rodalies.
The PSC and En Comú Podem, the two actors that approved the 2023 budgets, assure that, three months after Vilagrà’s words, they have not contacted them to talk about next year. “Maybe They already have an extension“, point out from the Comuns, who point out the relevance that it would have to agree on the reduction of the debt with the State.
No vetoes to the PSC
From the point of view of both opposition parties, it is possible, if there is the will to do so, to work based on an outline while waiting for the definitive data provided by the Government so that do not repeat the delay which has already been produced from the accounts currently in force. These were approved on March 10 after a long give-and-take between ERC and the PSC and the Republicans reluctantly giving in to the construction of the Ronda Nord between Sabadell and Terrassa.
Unlike then, the Government now considers normalized dialogue “in the budgetary sphere” with the group of Salvador Illa. If a year ago both Aragonès and Oriol Junqueras They maintained that they would not agree the accounts with the PSC in a context in which they did not foresee the definitive departure of Junts from the Executiu, now the ‘president’ includes the socialists without vetoes in the round of contacts when the technical phase ends and the policy begins.
“He will speak again with all the groups with which he has negotiated budgets in the past,” the Presidency specifies, emphasizing that this also includes the CUP despite the fact that last year they closed the door to entering the round of talks. With Junts, with whom ERC maintains priority agreementefforts are currently focused on a minimal coordination for the investiture by Pedro Sánchez. It is taken for granted that the exchanges of support in response to mutual needs will once again be on the table in negotiations that will once again take a triangular dimension: Congress, Parliament and Barcelona City Council. The risk of a repetition of the general elections will hover over all the dialogues, as well as a Catalan election that will be, at the latest, in February 2025.
The balance of the PSC
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Salvador Illa is not particularly satisfied for now with the pace of compliance with what was agreed for 2023. After the balance meeting they held with the Government last week, the reading they make is that “There is a lot of room for improvement” in compliance, especially in the area of investments to address the drought, while at the government level they boast of having already executed 55% of what was agreed. For now, there is no trace of the commission to assess the increase in the capacity of the Prat airport, while the previous protocol for the Ronda Nord was signed at the beginning of July.
The Catalan socialists have no choice but to temporize and balance their strategy of putting pressure on the Government in the face of dependency that Sánchez currently has the votes of the independentistas to continue in Moncloa. The PSC, which waves the flag of “responsible” opposition with its eye on reaching the Generalitat, is for now in a discreet role and maintains that it is not time to rush elections despite the fact that it was the party with the most votes in the municipal elections and obtained more votes than the three pro-independence parties combined in the municipal elections. Although the amnesty is the axis on which an eventual investiture agreement will pivot, the economic debate, one of the elements on which the socialists understand that the ‘procés’ was founded, will also be part of the fight.