The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, has replied this Friday to the first vice president of the Government, María Jesús Montero, who had stated that the agreement between the PSC and ERC to invest Salvador Illa as president of the Generalitat is not an economic agreement, although it does not imply a “usual reform” of the financing model. “Whoever wants to say otherwise is lying,” said Montero. The Minister of Finance played down the statements that Borrell, a member of the PSC, made to EL PAÍS last Monday and in which he attacked this agreement between the Republicans and the Socialists. “The pact between the Socialists and ERC assumes post mortem the story of the process”, he said. Borrell said on Friday after a conference that, despite not wanting to fatten up the debate, he also does not want to “come across as a liar”. “It is a concert”, Borrell summed up, who estimated that the agreement could contribute, from the start, some 30,000 million euros more to the Catalan coffers.
Borrell had criticised the agreement to invest Illa in an interview with this newspaper, considering that the socialists were moving towards a “confederal” model with the granting of the economic agreement to Catalonia. Although the Treasury says that it will comply with the agreements with the Republicans, Montero wanted to reassure the barons of his party this week by rejecting that he is thinking of an agreement similar to the Basque and Navarrese ones for the community. “It is neither an economic agreement nor is it a reform to the use of the financing system,” he said during a visit to the municipality of Rota (Cádiz). Asked in that appearance about Borrell’s statements to EL PAÍS, Montero said: “We all know his peculiar relationship with Catalonia and everything that it implied, something that belongs to the past, like the process. The Government is working for the future (…) It does not offer a solution, but I respect Borrell’s opinion. He has done a magnificent job with Ukraine and Palestine defining the European position.”
This Friday, the EU High Representative wanted to respond to Montero after a talk on geopolitics at the Menéndez Pelayo International University in Santander. “I do not want to fuel the public debate, but I do not want to be seen as a liar either,” he said. For Borrell, in this case, the thing makes the name. “Words have a meaning,” he specified. In his opinion, the agreements signed by the PSC to return to the presidency of the Generalitat imply a “structural change” in the financing model, since the central Government delegates to the community the power to “collect all taxes” and “keep them to feed its Treasury” to then make a transfer to the State to pay for the services provided —which, in this case, has been agreed to be carried out through the participation of the central Administration in taxes— and another to contribute to inter-territorial solidarity. “In technical terms it is an agreement,” he stressed.
The agreement between the PSC and ERC does not mention the term “economic agreement” at any point. The socialists, in fact, feel more comfortable with the label “singular financing”, which does appear in the agreement and which the republicans initially also referred to. However, they chose to say that the “agreement” formula had been agreed in order to sell it to their bases. “There is no need to be afraid of words,” he said. “Why are we going to deny that it is an agreement system and take refuge in the fact that it is a singular thing?” added Borrell, who recalled that at no time has he maintained that the Catalan agreement is going to be a similar agreement to the Basque one. “What does singular mean? I have said that it is an agreement system and I reaffirm that. And nothing happens,” he added.
PSC and ERC also emphasise that the future Catalan system will differ from the Basque one due to a greater contribution to solidarity with the rest of the autonomous communities. In the case of the Basque Country and Navarre, this is minimal and is made through the inter-territorial solidarity fund. In the case of Catalonia, it is yet to be defined. Borrell has estimated that the Generalitat, to start with, would have 30,000 million more euros in the coffers thanks to the new model. However, this is before its contribution is made to the rest of the autonomous communities. “I have not anticipated any result for inter-territorial solidarity,” he warned.
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