Catalonia’s unique financing brings the government and opposition face to face in the Senate for the first time

The Government faces its first parliamentary debate on the singular financing of Catalonia on Wednesday. The First Vice President and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, appears for the first time in the Senate to give an account of the agreements between PSC and ERC that facilitated the presidency of the Generalitat to Salvador Illa. Montero faces the pincer formed by PP and Vox, who accuse Sánchez’s Executive of having given in to the “separatist quota”, together with Junts, who accuse him of the opposite by considering that he has deceived the Catalans with “a non-existent agreement” that the Republicans sold with great fanfare. The Government has already anticipated the criticism of the PP on Tuesday by reminding it again that it lacks an alternative financing proposal.

The alliance of the PP, Vox and Junts did not force Montero to explain the agreements on Catalan financing in Congress. The absolute majority of the PP did, however, force her to appear in the Senate. Montero almost gave the starting signal to the political year when in Rota (Cádiz) she tried to reassure the most critical voices of her party – among them, the commissioner José Borrell, the president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García Page, or the president of Asturias, Adrián Barbón – by pointing out that the financing system agreed for Catalonia “is not an agreement”. Montero also accused the PP of “lying” and using Catalonia to attack the Government.

The minister’s words infuriated the pro-independence parties, but especially Junts, which is still digesting Salvador Illa’s victory and the rapid accumulation of institutional power by the Catalan socialists. The government is trying to hold Carles Puigdemont’s party up to the mirror: although it agrees with him that it is not an agreement, the agreement signed by Illa – and which the Treasury has said it will comply with – is identical to the proposal that the Catalan Parliament approved in 2005 with the support of CiU, PSC, ERC and ICV and which was later downgraded by the Congress of Deputies and the Constitutional Court. With this formula, which gives the key to the tax coffers of the Generalitat, the parties hoped to achieve the results of the Basque agreement progressively over a period of 10 years.

The PP will seek to corner the Government with the loss of resources that this agreement may entail for other communities, putting more pressure on the socialist barons in view of the PSOE Federal Council next Saturday. Faced with these attacks, the Government insists that in no case will it put equality in the provision of public services at risk. At the same time, Sánchez’s Executive seeks to sell the benefits of the agreement: Catalonia has recovered “institutional normality” and has left behind the Spain is robbing us to talk about a system that incorporates “inter-territorial solidarity”. The Minister of Industry, Jordi Hereu, gave as an example this Tuesday the greeting that the mayor of Barcelona, ​​Jaume Collboni, and the president Salvador Illa toasted the King during the America’s Cup. “It is a normality that I believe is a great asset, not only for Catalonia, but for all of Spain, because it is the basis that allows us to develop socially and economically, and there are a thousand things that the Generalitat can promote,” he said. “This was literally impossible seven years ago,” he added.

The Government also reproaches the PP for its barons demanding a reform of the financing system, but for lacking a single proposal that sets out a concrete formula. “We hear Feijóo returning from vacation without a proposal, just as he left. And each leader of an autonomous region asks for what is his: Juanma Moreno, removes it; Azcón tells his colleagues not to trust the Government and, on the other hand, the Valencian president [en alusión a Carlos Mazón] “He is asking for more resources and funding,” said the spokesperson minister Pilar Alegría, after the Council of Ministers. Feijóo will meet with his barons next Friday to form a common front against regional funding, although a document with a concrete roadmap is not expected from the meeting given the disparity of their demands.

Provisions of the statutes

Sánchez’s government has been insisting that several autonomous regions already have their own specificities, such as the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands, both within the common regime. What’s more, the PSOE spokesperson, Esther Peña, even referred to the specificities of provinces such as Soria, Teruel or Cuenca, which caused astonishment among some parties in those territories. Montero has already warned that the new reform of the financing system will not be “usual”, but will deepen a “greater federalisation of the State” and a “greater concession of self-government”.

Peña advocated tackling the reform of the financing system from a “bilateral” perspective. And not just with the Government. “Catalonia has opened the gap,” he said. The Statutes of Aragon and Andalusia, for example, contain provisions similar to those of Catalonia on the tax agency, while that of the Valencian Community explicitly provides for a “levelling mechanism.” In other words, communities governed by the PP can also expand their powers in financing with the deployment of their statutes. The PP, however, has asked its barons not to enter into such a one-on-one with the Government, even though that is the way to overcome the cross-vetoes that other autonomous regions, including the PP, may impose in a multilateral negotiation.