Why has state investment control failed (so far)?

BarcelonaThe poor implementation of the State's budget in Catalonia is an endemic issue that has been dragging on for years. The Generalitat (Catalan government) has long been pushing to create mechanisms to ensure that state investments actually materialize, but so far it has been to no avail. an "observatory" to "monitor the main investments" that the State makes in CataloniaHowever, this is more of a tool of pressure than control, because the State is not represented; the idea was to include part of the Catalan economic fabric and also the political parties with the greatest representation in Parliament.

Since October 2022, the Spanish government has not published the budget execution broken down by autonomous communities. Instead, the General Intervention of the State Administration (IGAE) sends the data every six months to the Congress of Deputies, and the most recent ones have been made. of 2024: Catalonia remained at the bottom of the state budget execution list with 20%.A figure that contrasts with the investments that materialized in Madrid, close to 60%.

The level of non-compliance is long-standing. The 2006 reform of the Statute of Autonomy included the well-known third additional provision, which established that the investment grade in Catalonia should be equal to the weight of Catalan GDP in the entire state for the following seven years. However, the Constitutional Court ruling eliminated the obligation to comply with this article. In 2022, the Generalitat (Catalan Government) reached an agreement with the State to receive €359 million outstanding from 2008 in two installments: €200 million in 2023 and €159 million in 2024. The State has already paid this money to the Generalitat, according to government sources.

In the Generalitat-State Bilateral Commission, which met in February, a working group was agreed upon to accelerate precisely these compensations, as explained at the time by the Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau. Well, the same sources assure ARA that these amounts have already been paid.

The same provision of the Statute also specified that a "commission composed of state, regional, and local governments" should be established to oversee these investments. The Generalitat (Catalan government) and the Spanish government agreed to create the Bilateral Infrastructure Commission, but it also failed to improve the execution rate. "There is an absolute lack of will," emphasizes Albert Carreras, professor of history and economic institutions at Pompeu Fabra University, who points to "resistance" from senior technical staff within the state administration.

Faced with the failure to meet the budget execution figures, Esquerra (Revolutionary Left) agreed with the Spanish government on another system to try to ensure that the budgeted investments would materialize: that the State would transfer the resources and the Generalitat would execute the investment; this was the so-called management commission system. The model was agreed upon to improve land and rail infrastructure. By 2023, 900 million euros were to be transferred to implement improvements to roads such as the N-II, the AP-2, and the AP-7. Guillem López Casasnovas, professor of economics at Pompeu Fabra University, focuses on the control of these projects as a key element in overseeing investments.

The consortium agreed to invest in Isla

The last attempt to control this budget execution was during the negotiations to inaugurate Salvador Illa. Almost a year later, nothing has materialized. At the February meeting of the Bilateral Commission, it was agreed to create a working group to design this consortium, so that it would be operational by the end of the year.