After more than a decade of ‘procés’ in which the political debate revolved almost exclusively around independencein Catalonia there is talk again about financing of the Generalitat. The first signal was given by the agreements between ERC and Junts with the PSOE to undo the investiture, which included demands to reduce the debt of the Catalan administration and improve its income. The second signal arrived this Monday from the Parliament: the debt study commission has approved a document that demands 456,000 million euros from the State in “historical debt” and also a “singular financing law for Catalonia”.
This document does not come from nowhere. They are the conclusions which this commission has reached after months of work – it began before the investiture negotiation – and which bear the signature of ERC and Junts. The text includes a long list of demands that is closer to a letter to Magician Kings of the East that an acceptable document for the Government of the day, but it confirms that both Republicans and post-convergents want to play the card of improving the financing of the Generalitat. A letter that both parties had not paid attention to for at least a decade.
The first objective of ERC and Junts is to list the grievances of the state. Here the most notable figure is that they place the “historical debt” with Catalonia at 456,000 million and divide it into three concepts: 50,900 relating to the deficit in infrastructure investment; 375,000 in concept of social benefits and 30,000 million in pension concept. The calculation is made for the period from 1982, with the basic agreements for financing of the Generalitatuntil last year.
But, beyond this figure that is hardly acceptable and, above all, affordable for any Government, the Parliament also demands something much more concrete and tangible: total debt forgiveness that the Generalitat has with the State for having joined the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (FLA). In fact, the ERC-PSOE investiture agreement already contemplates forgiveness of 20% of the debt -about 15,000 million- and now the Parliament will demand to leave this debt at 0. The story that the document makes is that, if Catalonia did not have a fiscal deficit between what it contributes and what it receives from the current common treasury, it would not have reached this figure of debt. Therefore, condonation is requested.
Looking at the future
Finally, the document also looks to the future. How to improve the current situation? Here we talk about the need for Catalonia to have financing tailored to its needs through a law “singular” for the Generalitat. A rule that would transfer to the Government the management and collection of taxes generated in Catalonia. “A step forward in our sovereignty,” states the document that, it concludes, would not need to modify the current general law, the LOFCA.
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This unique law would lead, for example, to the creation of a Catalan Social Security Agency to promote a “own pension system” or to transfer full competencies to the Tax Agency of Catalonia to collect all taxes. Then a “solidarity quota” would be set between Catalonia and the State. In short, it would operate like the Basque economic agreement or the fiscal pact that was proposed at the time. President Artur Mas, but that received a slam of the door from the Government. A slam of the door that led him to call elections, the regional elections of 2012, from which the first vote on independence emerged, on November 9, 2014.
ERC and Junts They know that, from the beginning, no Government will be able to accept the demands raised in this document. However, what was proposed this Monday for the Parliament is A starting point that sets the framework that they are willing to work for better financing. And although his approach may seem like a chimera, someone could say that an amnesty also seemed like a chimera. A decade after the start of the ‘procés’, Catalonia returns to talk about financing.