Albert Dalmau: "Ayuso talks a lot about Spain, but her fiscal dumping is absolutely unsolidary"

BarcelonaAlbert Dalmau (Barcelona, ​​​​1990), advisor to the Presidency, visits the ARA just after the four bilateral commissions between the State and the Generalitat.

He has coordinated the four bilateral commissions: what is his assessment?

— Very positive. The president's order was to do them in February so that we could deploy three things from our ideology: our own government agenda, to reach an agreement with the Spanish government, but also to comply with the investiture agreements. Through collaboration, more benefits are obtained for the whole country than through confrontation. Expanding the number of Mossos or the judicial force are important advances.

The financing system has been out of date since 2014. When do you expect a new one to be in place?

— The sooner the better. The agreement with Esquerra is ambitious and has made us all move positions, but it has also been the basis for opening a new legislature. Now it is not necessary to negotiate it, but to comply with it and develop it. We are negotiating with the Spanish government this deployment schedule. I am optimistic, the meetings are going well. The schedule speaks of six months and that means reaching June: there is a match.

Will Catalonia leave the common regime?

— There is a part that shows elements of singularity, bilaterality and multilaterality. This is what we are negotiating now. I would be lying to you if I told you that we have the solution today, we are still working with the Spanish government on how the financing system should be. It provides for a guarantee of solidarity and to remain within the framework of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council. And it also allows elements of singularity because we have put on the table the need to maintain ordinality in the allocation of resources.

But he has not told me whether we will leave the common regime.

— Because today we are still working on this development.

Does the fact that the Minister of Finance is also the candidate for Andalusia make the negotiations more complicated?

— No, because there is an agreement and a shared vision within the PSOE that the model we must move towards is that of a very federal Spain, in which we must be able to respond to different territorial sensitivities. Catalonia and Andalusia are two of the communities that will benefit most from the FLA agreement, but so will the Valencian Community and Murcia.

With the FLA negotiations we have seen the PP's position. Is Spain federalizable?

— I would like to have a PP that does not oppose everything, that tries not to always set the country on fire. Mrs Ayuso's statements are very destructive, they do not contribute anything good to the debate that must be held. Positions can be defended, different views can be held, but this level of aggressiveness is neither good nor healthy for public life. President Isla has a constructive tone.

Will there be an attempt to have Spanish Tax Agency agents work or move to the Catalan Tax Agency?

— We have not yet reached this point. We are working on the mechanisms for collaboration between the two agencies. We will have to cooperate in terms of information exchange, computer systems, and our staff will have to collaborate and cooperate with that of the Spanish Tax Agency.

Can Ayuso or Mazón renounce the forgiveness of the FLA debt?

— The PP communities will end up benefiting from the FLA debt forgiveness. The opposition I have seen from the PP and Ayuso is not positive. And I must say with disbelief that Junts' opposition seems to coincide too often. One cannot take one's citizens hostage when it comes to politically setting the country on fire.

What do you think when you see that taxes are constantly being lowered in Madrid?

— With the rest of the regions of the country, we want to have a party of equals. And it seems to me to be absolutely unsolidary when I see that the Community of Madrid, on the one hand, lowers taxes and, on the other, asks to participate in more resources. It is not fair. The fiscal dumping that the Community of Madrid does, harms the neighbouring communities the most. Catalonia wants to lead Spain economically. And for this we ask to have the same rules of the game and a neutral referee. We believe that we can project that Catalonia will once again be the first community in Spain in terms of gross domestic product. Furthermore, I am surprised that someone like Ayuso, who talks so much about Spain, is the person most unsupportive of the communities in Spain.

How is this project to surpass Madrid's GDP being implemented?

— Catalonia has everything it needs to do well. The country needs to overcome a period of maximum blockage to move on to a period of maximum ambition, which is done with stability and by focusing on management. We have put on the table an investment of 18.5 billion euros in pending infrastructures. This is done with public-private collaboration, generating the climate for business decisions such as those we have seen in recent months to allow the return of some companies to Catalonia. This past year, Catalonia has been the community that has grown the most, with 3.6%, above the Spanish average, being one of the regions in Europe that is growing the most.

One of the biggest obstacles is the country's bureaucracy.

— We have made significant steps in this area, such as a proposal to speed up public works. It is a scandal that investments are not being made in the country. In Barcelona City Council, 90% of the investments were made each year and I hope that this will also happen with the government of Catalonia. We have increased the thresholds for awarding public works, the diversification of operators. We have started a process to eliminate and make more flexible the thirty procedures most used by citizens. Or, for example, with the professionalization of public management. It is still surprising to me that the president of this country changes and then 400 people change in the administration. We must be able to have more stability, to call on professionals for the public sector, from the private sector to join and serve the country.

The State has still not made public the budget execution data. Have you asked for them?

— We asked for them. I think they should be made public. It is an issue that concerns us and we have succeeded, in the last bilateral commission, in creating this investment consortium. We cannot lose a single euro of public works.

But if we don't know what its execution is, it's difficult.

— We know from previous years that they are not satisfactory. Our goal must be to aim for a figure that is above 90%.

Will you make the fiscal balances public?

— When this information is available, we will be able to continue this discussion. But we are not at the level we would like to be at. With this criterion of solidarity and ordinality at the same time, we put forward the proposal for new financing.

They will not have a budget and will have to extend their credit by 4 billion euros. How are negotiations with partners going?

— I hope that during this legislature there will be a budget and I would like the credit extension to happen sooner rather than later. We must generate trust with Esquerra and the Comuns. I am optimistic. In recent weeks we have had some agreements that are going in the right direction: the FLA, Cercanías, the Catalan shock plan, in terms of housing. We are negotiating with all of them.

Is President Isla's relationship with Junqueras easier after the photo?

— Yes, the message that they have given us has been to move forward in fulfilling the agreements and we have fulfilled them. With Junqueras' party we have been able to push forward a very important agreement on the Cercanías, the result of the last bilateral meeting, where they have made us move. We are generating trust. The country would not understand that six months ago we agreed on an investiture and were not able to provide the necessary stability that the country needs. The relationship is fluid.

Is it necessary to reduce the number of immigrants arriving in Catalonia?

— People ignore the fact that many of the immigrants are Catalans who today work and contribute to the country. The country has seen a population increase in a continent where there are few of us and we are getting older. The arrival of people contributes to the dynamism of our economy and is an essential part of our society. We must never fall into the dehumanizing discourse of people who come from outside.

Are you afraid of the far right?

— Yes, we fear it, but we are going to fight it. There can be no hesitation in approaching the ultra-right positions that are so damaging to the institutions, to the market economy, to democracy and to Europe and to Catalonia. Those who today defend ultra-right ideas are the ones who are imposing tariffs on our agricultural products and putting an end to our exports. This is a progressive government that will talk a lot about security because we want to claim security as a policy of social cohesion and of the left. A progressive government must be able to combine these social policies with very strong policies to prevent insecurity.

How to change the language situation?

— We are worried but also hopeful. If we want to preserve the central axis of our nation and our national identity, we need to ensure that anyone who comes here can learn our language. I am surprised to find people who wanted to learn Catalan and turned to the Consortium for Linguistic Normalisation and we were not able to absorb the demand. That is why we have reached an agreement to be able to meet this demand. There is also a huge challenge in the audiovisual field. And, to do so, we must be able to reach a national consensus. In matters of language we cannot fail anyone and above all we must try not to use it as a political weapon.

And regarding Catalan in Europe, how have the talks with the President of the European Parliament gone?

— There is an offensive on land, sea and air to advance the use of Catalan in Europe. This week progress was made and the Economic and Social Council agreed to introduce Catalan, and we need Catalan to be introduced in the European Parliament. The PP is not making it easy, but we also hope to convince them.

One of your first decisions was to put an end to remote working for senior managers. How did that go?

— It is a measure that I am very convinced of. It has never been a sign of distrust, but rather a sign of maximum confidence. We need all the leaders of the Generalitat administration more than ever. To lead a team of 5 to 50 people, it is difficult to do so from home.

When is President Isla scheduled to meet with former President Carles Puigdemont?

— The president will have to answer this. Puigdemont and I, who deserve all respect, have radically different ideas about how to understand the country, but we need all political actors to be able to be in Catalonia doing politics.

President Maragall also encountered these traditionally bittersweet relations with the PSOE. Why should this time be any different?

— We are in a new phase of the relationship between the Spanish government and the Catalan government. I believe that President Sánchez's project is objectively positive for Catalonia. Where do we want to be? With the mess we had ten years ago?

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