The uniqueness of unique financing

For now, the only unusual thing about Catalonia's new and long-awaited regional funding is that it's probably languishing in limbo, and that's because of the Andalusian mammograms. It might be surprising, but it's true. Let me explain.

The fact that the Catalan commission in charge of the proposal is taking so long doesn't necessarily mean it will suddenly find the guiding light that should lead us to an agreement. With its current composition, and in pursuit of a dubious consensus, I think the matter has reached a dead end. There's speculation that the reason this commission's proposal hasn't been presented yet—the commission has no other guide than the investiture agreement and has had ample time to work on it—is due to the fear that, when the Spanish government presents its proposal in two months, a discrepancy will be revealed, leading to multiple interpretations.

Be that as it may, the point is that the Spanish government had probably deluded itself into thinking that Andalusia, like Extremadura, would have brought forward its elections, and that, therefore, Ms. Montero would currently be campaigning at home without the responsibility of having reached any agreement with the Catalans. A reform that would thus be approved by a new substitute vice president, who would blame the deceased for having "subordinated herself to the interests of the secessionists," and who would be trying in any case to extend the reform to the rest of the autonomous communities. It is certainly curious that the mammogram debacle for Andalusian women has delayed everything. President Moreno Bonilla now doesn't dare to call elections, the Socialist candidate remains in the vice presidency of the government, and the "Catalan singularity" is left waiting in the back of the line.

Unfortunately, the mammogram debacle was unforeseen: such is the nature of politics and the true weight of investiture agreements. But the rest was and is predictable: the study commission, the deadlines both set and violated, the euphemisms in the potential wording aimed at reaching an agreement, the foreseeable diversity of interpretations that will arise, and the opposing reactions, regardless of the final text. Therefore, at this point, obviously at the risk of being wrong, I'm making suppositions based on my crystal ball, born from the experience of watching the hamster wheel run and run. I predict: We will indeed have an agreement! As always, thanks to the Catalan push, which has been quite criticized. Initially, there will be a ordinal system, but with nuances regarding whether the ranking to be preserved is one euro more for the region that should be below us, or one euro less than the one we will have above us. Nothing trivial. And from there, the uniqueness will be sold as a correction to the specific parameter of resource distribution: the corrected, adjusted, and, where applicable, increased population! All based on what each community claims. ad hocaltering, at least temporarily, the previously established order. For Catalonia, it will be something related to demography and immigration, pressures on the cost of living, and the already incorporated concepts of police, prisons, and its own language.Et cetera. And all of this, without further justification, will provide a certain amount of liquidity, outside of the current advances. Once the Catalan noise has died down, all the autonomous communities will come in with their demands: age-adjusted population, depopulation, rurality... Another will cite its unique orographic and livestock characteristics, illiteracy, poverty, inequality, or insularity—double or triple, and if you'll excuse the joke, for those who allow fruit trees per square meter. Bilateral and multilateralism. All of this calculated based on the initial ordinality, the bill for which the central administration would collect in each case against its own revenues (this in itself would be the main advance!), given the holy fear of the deficit ("and who pays for that?") expressed by the president of AIReF.

Managing personal income tax will be left for later. Deepening fiscal responsibility, once all the autonomous communities have aligned themselves, will be a matter for later times. Collecting all taxes and agreeing on equalization, ad calendas graecasIf the chartered communities are included in this scheme, it will be the end of the discussion. The common sense of the Catalans themselves will reveal the conformist attitude of "it couldn't be any other way." The new conservative government, despite the complaints voiced, will consider the work done a success, relieved that the mess happened during the previous administration, and pleased that the wear and tear of the approval process has once again eroded the Catalan separatists.

I hope I'm wrong, that the hamster has gotten fat and ends up breaking my old crystal ball.