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Yesterday I asked a negotiator from the PSC-ERC table how the Illa-Junqueras duel will end and he told me: "we are talking..., but it is difficult to reach an agreement."
Remember: the day after tomorrow, President Illa will send the budget to Parliament without Esquerra's votes. Esquerra is withholding them because it wants the government, the PSOE, to unblock the Generalitat's management of 100% of the Personal Income Tax (IRPF). The PSC defends itself by saying that now is not the time, but that Illa has given his word that this will happen, and Esquerra replies that if you want to believe it, go and see it. Well, this was formalized today in the government's question time. Here is the discussion I just described, in the words of its protagonists, Illa for the PSC and Josep Maria Jové for Esquerra, so you remember that Junqueras has not been granted amnesty and is still barred from holding public office.
Josep Maria Jové i Lladó: "You want budgets, Mr. President, so do we. And don't err on the side of applying pressure, Mr. President. It is the PSOE you should be pressuring, not Esquerra Republicana. It is the PSOE you need to move, not us."
President Salvador Illa: "As President of Catalonia, I fulfill all my commitments. I will fulfill my obligations regarding income tax, just as I have fulfilled my obligations regarding financing, which is a tangible fact. Today, Catalonia needs a budget; there's no way around it. That's why, as I announced, I have called an extraordinary cabinet meeting for this Friday to approve the budget. Fulfilling this obligation is not the end of anything. On the contrary, quite the opposite, it's the beginning of a parliamentary process."
Josep Maria Jové Lladó: "We'll take his hand, he knows that perfectly well. First he fulfills his promises and then we'll negotiate."
At the exact same moment this was happening in Barcelona, a parliamentary question time session was taking place in Madrid for Pedro Sánchez's government. And the clash between the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) and the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), stemming from the Socialist Party (PSOE), was presented by Míriam Nogueras of Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia). You'll see it now, preceded by what is becoming a familiar pattern: Feijóo struggling to find his footing and Sánchez openly stooping to the top.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo: "If he keeps this up, he'll end up trying to convince us that you arrested him on February 23rd. Thank you very much, sir."
Pedro Sánchez: "The most interesting thing, Mr. Feijóo, is that you had this written down. I can just imagine you in front of the mirror reading and spouting this litany of lies, hoaxes, and slander. Is that all you do, Mr. Feijóo? Something else you have to do each week."
Miriam Nogueras: "I think our colleagues in Esquerra are starting to realize that you can't be trusted. Because you have failed them. They don't have the economic agreement, they don't have control of the treasury, nor the special funding, nor the personal income tax that President Illa promised, nor the transfer of the commuter rail service," nor anything else they've been promised.
Pedro Sánchez: "This is a question time session for the Spanish government, not for Esquerra Republicana. I don't know, Mr. Rufián, if you want to answer the part that corresponds to Esquerra Republicana… / I believe that this government is fulfilling its obligations to Catalonia, and to the parliamentary groups."
Miriam Nogueras: "Are you concerned about the people? Well, start by stopping the spending of Catalans' money on Spanishizing Catalonia's highways with the complicity of the Illa government and changing the signs to Castilian, and allocate Catalans' money to public housing as the most developed countries in Europe do and as the citizens of Catalonia demand and need."
Look, if there's no budget in the end, we'll all pay the price, because the government will have 1.5 billion euros less. But if he could govern, Illa could. The problem is that he might spend the entire term without passing a budget. Because it's reasonable to believe that Illa, judging by the polls, would serve out his term without calling early elections. So we wouldn't have a budget, nor elections, but a deadlock similar to the one in Madrid.
Good morning.