Several experts assert that the unique financing proposal has "nothing to do" with the Basque agreement.

Barcelona"Catalonia's contribution will be made through a percentage of taxes. We won't keep all the taxes for ourselves." This is how Maite Vilalta, professor of public economics at the University of Barcelona (UB), described the main difference between the proposal for singular financing for Catalonia agreed between the PSC and ERC and the concert model that the Basque Country and Navarre have. Vilalta, who is a member of the group of experts appointed by the Generalitat to design the new model, reiterated that the agreed proposal is very different from the models of the two autonomous communities.

"The agreed model has nothing to do with the two pillars that define the autonomous community model," she explained. These two pillars are, on the one hand, that the Basque Country and Navarre control 100% of tax collection and, secondly, the so-called quota, which is the amount of money collected that regional governments transfer to the Spanish government to offset state spending in their respective territories and on common services (for example, the military or diplomacy). These two elements are not present in the pact between the ERC and PSC. "These two differences are so substantial that saying that Catalonia's unique model is a replica of the agreement or the convention is completely irregular or false," said Alejandro Esteller, professor of economics at the UB and also a member of the Generalitat's group of experts.

If the agreement ultimately implements the plan, Catalonia's unique financing will require Catalan citizens and businesses to pay all their taxes to the Catalan Tax Agency (ATC), as is the case in both autonomous communities. However, the difference is that, according to the agreed proposal, the ATC will transfer a percentage of the taxes collected directly to the coffers of the Generalitat (Catalan Government) and another percentage to the state. This percentage must be agreed upon at the political and technical levels to cover the expenses of the two administrations in Catalonia.

That is, on paper, the new model will maintain a system "similar to the one we have now," in which there is a basket of taxes collected, and the state and autonomous communities agree on what proportion of each tax they keep, Vilalta indicated. However, Esteller and Vilalta emphasized that the proposal for singular financing is not a simple update of the current model (approved in 2009). Rather, they aim for a "substantial improvement" in the revenue received by the Generalitat, in addition to other elements that would represent profound changes to the model, such as the inclusion of the principle of ordinality.

The model also provides that, in the taxes it controls, the Generalitat will gain regulatory power to modify them. "That would be closer to the regional model," Vilalta explained.

A possible singularity

Vilalta is one of the authors of the report Unique models of subcentral financing published by the Barcelona Institute of Economics (IEB) at the UB on unique financing models around the world, coordinated by Esteller and Marta Espasa, professor of public finance at the UB, former Secretary of the Treasury of the Generalitat (Catalan Government) and currently a member of the Catalan government's expert group. The study, presented this Friday in Barcelona, ​​delves into the financing models of three distinct territories: Navarre, whose regional model is similar to the Basque Country; Quebec, the main French-speaking province in Canada; and Scotland, where an agreed referendum on independence from the United Kingdom was held in 2014.

One of the report's points is to confirm that "a cohesive federal country can exist that coexists with its unique features," Espasa said. In fact, current Spanish legality already includes three distinct models: both regional and the Canary Islands. The former Treasury Secretary also noted that a model that grants greater fiscal powers and resources to the Generalitat (Catalan Government) would have pros and cons: "More fiscal autonomy must also entail greater fiscal risk," she indicated.

"We can have a lot of decentralization, but if it remains administrative, we don't gain financial strength. If it falls short, we will have to move toward uniqueness because perhaps not all autonomous communities want greater [fiscal] responsibility," Esteller added. Likewise, the UB professor recalled that the pact between the PSC and ERC includes a contribution from the Generalitat (Catalan government) to inter-territorial "solidarity," but this is not present in all systems (for example, that of the United States): "Not all federal countries have solidarity, but through the Constitution and other laws we have obliged ourselves."

In this sense, for example, the Quebec model provides that it is the only Canadian province that collects taxes, in addition to having the capacity to modify personal income tax and other taxes, but that it depends on direct transfers from the Canadian government. In the case of Scotland, following the 2014 independence referendum, in which the majority of the population voted to remain in the United Kingdom, the British government approved an extension of the Scottish executive's regulatory power over several taxes, especially income tax, so that Edinburgh would not be dependent on Scottish coffers for funding.

Regarding the Navarrese model, Pedro Pascual, professor of economics at the Public University of Navarre and co-author of the report, explained that it gives the regional government "the highest level of financial autonomy" possible, which places this territory and the Basque Country at the forefront of the resources per capita available to their regional administrations. On the other hand, Pascual criticizes the model as "very opaque" and has compared it to a "black box." In this sense, he emphasized that the Navarrese tax authorities "do not want to provide information": "There is an intrinsic culture in the regional treasury of Navarre that has not changed in many years," he concluded.