Anoia and Alt Penedès account for 40% of the Barcelona Provincial Council's discretionary subsidies.

BarcelonaThe Barcelona Provincial Council has the fourth-largest public budget after the Generalitat (Catalan Government), Barcelona City Council, and the Metropolitan Area (Metropolitan Area), but it often goes unnoticed in the public eye. The 2024 budget was €1,243.87 million and consists of several items, including transfers to local and private entities, which represent 42.23% of the total: €525.31 million. These resources include discretionary subsidies, which in 2024 amounted to €94.5 million, a figure that has multiplied fivefold compared to the previous year. ARA has analyzed the use of this money, which the provincial body allocates by hand, that is, based on political will: of the 61.8 million euros that go to local authorities, almost 40% (36.96%) is concentrated in just two regions, Alt Penedès and Anoia, according to data provided by the Provincial Council VII of the budget (capital transfers). Within these regions, the majority of the resources are received by the municipalities of the Junts party.

Some data that are not innocuous: Alt Penedès and Anoia are the regions of the dissident provincial deputies of Junts, Sergi Vallès (Impulsem Penedès) and Marc Castells. who supported the investiture of Lluïsa Moret (PSC) against party guidelines and allowed him to form a government in 2023. A coincidence that has already generated complaints from mayors over the distribution of resources and that some sources point to as the result of a "secret pact" for votes. They are far behind the third-largest, which belongs to Baix Llobregat (€8.9 million), which has a much higher population volume. Occidental (€3.8), Vallès Oriental (€3.7), and Bages (€3.5), while the rest are just over 2 million by hand.

The Provincial Council's budget was unanimously approved by the entire government, according to the council's president. This executive is made up of the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), Comuns (Comuns), the two dissidents from Junts (Junts), and Esquerra (Equestrian Left). who entered a few days after the investiture, following the Spanish elections. They also received the support of the People's Party (PP) in the plenary session. Furthermore, the Provincial Council emphasized that all subsidies granted in 2024 are duly audited by the agency's auditing authority.

Discretionary subsidies—formally called nominative—are a small part of the Provincial Council's budget (representing 3.44% of the budget already executed) and are regulated in the general ordinance on subsidies, updated during the 2015-2019 term of office with Mercè ConCastells as president. This legal text establishes that they must be granted in "exceptional" cases or if "reasons of public, social, economic, or humanitarian interest, or other duly justified reasons, are proven."

Discretionary grants increase fivefold

The ranking of discretionary grants—in which Alt Penedès and Anoia are the most benefited—contrasts with that of grants awarded based on objective criteria. While Anoia and Alt Penedès represent almost 40% of discretionary grants, in the case of ordinary grants they account for 11.21%. Last year, the first with Lluïsa Moret as president, the volume of discretionary grants soared compared to previous years. To quantify them, the ARA made a transparency request to the Provincial Council, which provided data for 2024 and for previous years referred it to the National Publicity System for Subsidies and Public Aid of the Ministry of Finance and Civil Service. According to the data posted on this portal, hand-granted grants have increased fivefold in the last year (+394%). While in 2024 there were €94.5 million in nominal subsidies, including those granted to local governments and entities, in 2023 there were €19.1 million; in 2022, €13.1 million; and in 2021, €19.4 million. In any case, sources from the Provincial Council clarify that to date, €25 million of this money has been spent on local councils and will be paid out progressively.

In response to questions from ARA, the Provincial Council downplays the amount of discretionary resources that Alt Penedès and Anoia receive and emphasizes that aid must be analyzed as a whole, including structural and objective aid. They also admit that the figures reveal an imbalance in discretionary subsidies between municipalities, but they counter this with two arguments. First, we must look at the "picture" as a whole, that is, we must wait until the end of the term in 2027. Second, in Anoia and Alt Penedès, needs or "unforeseen situations" have been detected that required injections of public funds outside of ordinary subsidy plans. They point, for example, to investments to address the drought or to combat the effects of the pandemic in the Òdena Basin, one of the areas that suffered the most from the ravages of COVID five years ago. Although this newspaper has been able to consult the amounts of the subsidies, it has not been able to access the details, only those of Igualada because the City Council has provided the data.

The Provincial Council also adds that since 2019, an "effort" has been made to establish order in the granting of subsidies and that, beyond this discretionary margin, the largest volume of resources is sent by the Red Plan through public competition (this plan includes the General Investment Plan), the Catà.

The Junts municipalities, the most benefited

The difference also exists when it comes to distributing resources within Anoia and Alt Penedès. If we look at how they are distributed among these municipalities, those governed by Junts and Impulsem Penedès, the parties of Marc Castells (Igualada) and Sergi Vallès (Torrelles de Foix), are the ones that have taken the largest share. Within Anoia, 82.3% of discretionary subsidies go to towns governed by Junts, although they represent 30% of the municipalities in the region. Igualada, where Castells is mayor and the regional capital with 41,755 inhabitants, has received €7.7 million in one year, which represents 69.8% of the total nominal subsidies received by Anoia (which has 33% of the region's population). In 2023, this same regional capital received no discretionary subsidies, while in 2022 it only received €150,000.

In Alt Penedès, 59.9% of discretionary subsidies go to municipalities governed by Impulsem Penedès, although this party governs 37% of the region's towns. 9.1% of the total subsidies in the Penedès region are received by Torrelles de Foix, with a population of 2,662, where Sergi Vallès is mayor.

Castells, who has responded to this newspaper's requests, boasts about the investment being made in Igualada, which he describes as the "largest" since the beginning of democracy. "I'm involved in politics," he says, referring to the pact he made with the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), adding that he's also trying to secure funding for his city from the Spanish state, the Catalan government, and the European Union, which this year granted him €6.7 million in aid. With the money he received from the Provincial Council, According to the City Council's website, "Cultural and sports facilities and schools have been renovated, and investments have been made in urban improvements, as well as in security and mobility," in addition to supporting the organization of European hockey competitions and Christmas lighting projects. Since the beginning of his term, he has been advocating for the agreement he reached with the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), which he says will allow €64 million to reach the region. collected by the Region 7 in July of last year. In one year, Anoia has gone from receiving less than €300,000 in discretionary subsidies to reaching €11 million.

In Alt Penedès, they have gone from €2 million in 2023 (€1.6 million of which they received in November, when Vallès was already in the Provincial Council) to more than €11 million in 2024. The mayor and provincial deputy has publicly boasted: at the beginning of the year he was taking out €8, looking ahead to 2025 and defended the distribution for 2024. "We have made a great effort to accommodate all those projects in Alt Penedès that met the requirements in this extraordinary aid program," he summarized. in a press release from Impulsem Penedès. When contacted by ARA, he declined to comment and referred to what he explained through City Hall channels.

Complaints in the area

Nominative subsidies are extraordinary in nature, distinct from those granted structurally and based on objective criteria. Several mayors of Alt Penedès, most of them from the ERC party, had already expressed their discontent to the president of the Barcelona Provincial Council, Lluïsa Moret, in a meeting held at the end of last year. They complained about the privileged treatment received by some municipalities to the detriment of others that were not in the same political camp as Sergi Vallès. Shortly after, Vallès himself, according to sources consulted, called a meeting with all the mayors of the region and Lluïsa Moret, but ended up calling it off just after the ARA will publish The coercion of this mayor of Impulsem Penedès to two councilors from Sant Martí Sarroca. Vallès threatened to freeze a €150,000 subsidy if the councilors did not support him in the internal battle to lead Junts in the region. A mayor from Central Catalonia, who has yet to receive any personal subsidies, complains that the procedure is "very opaque." In fact, he asserts that the only way is to claim them from the current deputy or from the president of the Provincial Council. Technically, they are not publicly contested.

Despite the discontent of some Republican mayors in the region, ERC distances itself from criticism. Its representatives in the Provincial Council, who are also part of the government, cite the example of Granada City Council, where the mayor is independent but close to ERC, as one of the beneficiaries of these subsidies to replace the turf of the municipal soccer field. The same sources also cite Capellades and Carme as examples, where the Republicans also govern. Sources within the Provincial Council government do not deny that there may have been complaints from territories and municipalities that may have felt less favored, but they insist again that the budget was approved unanimously by the entire executive. When contacted by this newspaper, Junts declined to comment.

However, Comuns has called for a review of the nominal subsidies granted this term and for the criteria for their allocation to be regulated to ensure a "clear and transparent" procedure that respects their exceptional nature. "We do not share the criteria being used by some areas of the Government to distribute some of these subsidies," sources within the party told ARA. For this reason, they have requested the creation of a working team within the Government to carry out this review. Sources within the group claim that this proposal was transmitted "verbally" and that the Government agreed to review the distribution criteria from that moment on, a claim denied by the Provincial Council president.