First, the government will have to obtain the approval of the Congress of Deputies, with the approval of the necessary modifications to the Organic Law on the Financing of the Autonomous Communities (LOFCA), but then the economic pact for Catalonia will face a dogfight in the courts. The autonomous governments of the PP and the national leadership of Alberto Núñez Feijóo have announced that they will challenge this measure before the Constitutional Court, but also that they will appeal against any regulatory developments required in the High Courts of Justice, the National Court and the Supreme Court. The Popular Party executives, who also announced appeals against the amnesty law for Catalan separatists, consider the economic agreement to be unconstitutional and of “impossible” practical application because it violates, in their opinion, the obligatory solidarity between territories established by the fundamental law.
The Popular Party regional governments reacted with absolute indignation this week to the agreement between ERC and the PSC that was endorsed by the Republican bases on Friday. The PP barons consider that the singular financing system for Catalonia will be detrimental to the financing of public services in their territories and, therefore, that it is unconstitutional. Thus, in a cascade, one by one the PP governments have warned that they will try to get the courts to prevent it from being carried out, without sparing any means. The president of the Valencian Community, Carlos Mazón, who heads the government of one of the worst-funded autonomous communities, warned that his Cabinet will take “all legal, social, political and institutional steps forward that are within its reach” against this initiative.
On Friday, Mazón asked the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to call a referendum on a new fiscal agreement for Catalonia. According to Mazón, Sánchez has the “moral and political obligation” to submit the agreement to the scrutiny of all Spaniards, Maria Fabra reports.
The Constitutional Court will presumably be in charge of deciding the legal basis of the agreement for the PP’s appeals. The Popular Party understands that this figure “lacks constitutional legitimacy,” says a note published this week by the FAES foundation, the think tank led by former Popular Party president José María Aznar, “unlike the Basque Country and Navarre”, whose uniqueness in terms of financing does appear in the text of the Constitution. They also consider that it lacks “statutory support, unlike the Basque Country and Navarre, and will require a reform of the organic law on regional financing to remove Catalonia from the common regime”.
The agreement document between ERC and PSC is based on articles 204 and 205 of the Statute, which establishes that the Generalitat can collect its own taxes without prejudice to those that the State Administration may assign to it. Both parties therefore defend the statutory and constitutional validity of the agreement. The text of the agreement states that Catalonia would have to contribute to the inter-territorial solidarity fund so that the rest of the territories have resources with which to provide basic public services, such as health and education. Article 156 of the Constitution, which regulates the scope of financial autonomy of the communities, expressly mentions solidarity, when it establishes that “the Autonomous Communities will enjoy financial autonomy for the development and execution of their powers in accordance with the principles of coordination with the State Treasury and solidarity among all Spaniards.” The second section of this article adds that “the Autonomous Communities may act as delegates or collaborators of the State for the collection, management and liquidation of the tax resources of the latter, in accordance with the laws and the Statutes.”
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