One of the difficulties in negotiating on the Budgets Generales del Estado (PGE) between the Government and ERC is that, in addition to having to deal with the items destined for the future, to 2023, the backpacks of the past must be overcome. Specifically, in the Catalan case, the very low execution of what had previously been budgeted and agreed upon. It is a different negotiationbecause they are not only trying to ‘snatch’ perks from the Executive, but both parties are also negotiating how to find a system that gives the maximum possible guarantees that what is approved in the Cortes is spent, finally, in the Catalan territory and is not stay on wet paper.
Guarantees, because the Achilles heel of investment is now his execution. And given that the monitoring commissions are not used to analyze, detect and remedy under-execution, the Government and ERC, as EL PERIÓDICO has learned, are studying applying in Catalonia the ‘commendations’ system already in practice in the bilateral relationship with Euskadi and also, as sources from the Ministry of Transport recall, in Navarre. It is a matter of transferring some of the works, with their guaranteed investment, to the Generalitat so that it is the one that carries them out. Or what is the same, whether for better or for worse, if the transferred works are not executed, it will have to be noted in the debit or credit of the regional administration. The percentage of compliance that the Generalitat provides for those investments that depend entirely on it is 72%, twice the state forecast.
If the usual ERC message regarding investment is taken as a guideline, it can be assumed that the bulk of these ceded works, which are being analyzed one by one, will correspond to the railway field, which the Government wants to promote to the detriment of the road sector. Thus, for example, the intention of the State to finish the highway B-40 ring road to Barcelona’s urban magma has met with the refusal of ERC, which has always defended that, in its place, a metropolitan train ’round’ be built between Vilanova i la Geltrú and Mataró, passing through Sabadell and Terrassa.
The Government plans to announce the agreement with ERC in the coming days, according to sources familiar with the negotiation. The Thursday The Congress of Deputies will vote on the General State Budget and will send it to the Senate so that it can continue processing. The Republican party is key for the coalition Executive to fulfill its commitment to “stability& rdquor; and managed to get his third accounts, the last of this legislature.
the current commission
Currently, there is a infrastructure monitoring committee made up of representatives of the Catalan Executive and the central government, to jointly analyze the projects, but it has proved insufficient because it works almost as “a notary of the rulings, but nothing more & rdquor ;, say Republican sources.
The Government plans to announce the agreement with ERC in the coming days, according to sources familiar with the negotiation
In the Budgets for 2021, both parties agreed to create this monitoring commission, although it was not a visionary move by anyone. Suffice it to recall that in the third additional provision of the 2006 Statute, the text recognized an investment deficit and a transition period in which the territorialized percentage for Catalonia had to reach a minimum equal to the demographic weight of the community in the State as a whole, between a 16% and 17%. That is to say, the Catalan complaints and regrets come from afar and, on occasion, for example now, with the Mediterranean Corridor, shared with other territories.
What few people expected in the Generalitat is that, once the commitment to an investment was sealed with the approval of the Catalan side (now, of ERC), the execution would be so stingy. Of the 2,068 million of budgeted investment, only about 739 were spent on the ground, 36%. And, in addition, with the painful grievance of the Community of Madrid, where 1,100 million were budgeted and, in the end, works were carried out for an amount of more than 2,000 million. A 184% against 36%.
the june meeting
And, as if that were not enough, the advance of what was executed in this 2022, specifically in the first semester, has a melody very similar to what was closed in 2021. Thus, until June 30, only the 16% The last meeting of the monitoring commission took place, precisely, in June after a face-to-face meeting between Pere Aragones and the Minister of Transport, raquel sanchez. Both coincided in the visit to the headquarters of Google in Barcelona and improvised a meeting. The ‘president’ once again insisted that the promises were left unfulfilled year after year, a complaint that successive Catalan governments have dragged on. The only thing they agreed on is that the follow-up commission meet.
The airport
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The strictly budgetary negotiation also has other fronts. The most important is the granting of the economic items themselves, where the Generalitat intends to receive those amounts that the State had already planned to send to Catalonia, for example, on account of the extension of the airportnow blocked.
Negotiation sources have also indicated that the issue of a possible transfer of Rodalies It is not channeled into these conversations, but rather they are the subject of study in the State-Generalitat bilateral commission.