ERC convenes its national council to validate Salvador Illa's budgets

BarcelonaGiven the impossibility of advancing in the short term with the transfer of personal income tax (IRPF), Esquerra had to look for another trophy that would allow it to exhibit some influence in Salvador Illa's government. It has ended up choosing the railway 'fourth ring road', the orbital line that the tripartite had begun to plan and which had been stored away since 2010. And once it has the PSC's commitment, the republicans consider that the time has come to approve the Government's budgets. As reported by RAC1 and confirmed by ARA, next Monday the leadership has convened an extraordinary national council at 6:30 p.m. to validate what the negotiating team has achieved and give the go-ahead to the accounts, which the executive will present imminently. The agenda includes an analysis of the political moment and the state of the budgetary negotiation.

Once the Andalusian elections are over, then, events will precipitate to ensure that Illa's Government gets the first budgets of the legislature. On Monday, ERC will consult with the party's national councilors —a formality— with Oriol Junqueras's leadership defending the 'yes' to the accounts. Also on Monday, the Secretary of Mobility and Infrastructure of the Government, Manel Nadal, will provide details of this railway 'fourth ring road'. With the support of the 20 republican deputies and the 6 from the Comuns, the Government will be able to approve the project in the executive council and it is expected that the project will be processed in the Parliament the same week next.

Thus, the Government will have to set a day and time to approve the budgets in an executive council for next week in order to start processing them in the Parliament as soon as possible and have them approved before the summer holidays. In parallel, a State-Generalitat bilateral commission should also be convened. In this meeting, the commitments agreed upon by the socialists and republicans beyond the accounts should be validated, that is, the orbital railway line itself —which depends largely on State funding—, but also the commercial company that must oversee State investments and also other transfers that the two parties still need to specify. In this meeting, more resources should also be approved to dimension the Tax Agency of Catalonia (ATC).

The orbital railway line

The orbital line is the network that should connect the cities of Vilanova i la Geltrú and Mataró without passing through Barcelona, going through various cities in the second metropolitan ring such as Vilafranca del Penedès, Martorell, Terrassa, Sabadell or Granollers. It is this project that, as explained by ARA, Republicans and Socialists have already agreed upon and which paves the way for the Generalitat's budgets to become a reality in the coming weeks. The orbital line, according to sources from Esquerra, would cost 5,200 million euros and is projected to be built over the next fifteen years – until 2040 –. The Government has called an event next Monday to provide details of the project.

Why is ERC rescuing this project now? The IRPF had been, until March, the sine qua non condition for the Republicans to negotiate the accounts. With the resumption of negotiations with the Government, Esquerra renounced its red line, knowing that the Spanish government would not yield, at least in the short term. Two scenarios were thus opening up: rejecting the accounts or ending up accepting a less ambitious exchange. The party assures, however, that it maintains the request for the transfer of IRPF collection to the Tax Agency of Catalonia and that it wants to recover it in the coming months, when the PSOE begins to process in Congress the law to facilitate the new financing model. Oriol Junqueras' party wants to claim this transfer through amendments, but will need the support of the PSOE for them to pass.

Without personal income tax, the republicans have set their sights on the country's mobility and, in particular, on a railway project they consider essential for this mobility to cease being exclusively radial, meaning that the majority of train lines pass through Barcelona to connect various Catalan cities. In fact, in 2023 Pere Aragonès's government already tried to rescue this project and commissioned the State to build the interchanges for the R8 of Rodalies with lines S1 Terrassa and S2 Sabadell of the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC). Precisely the reinforcement of the R8 is the first phase where this orbital line should begin to materialize. It would continue through the section between Santa Perpètua and Sabadell; Mataró and Granollers; Terrassa and Martorell, and Vilafranca with Vilanova i la Geltrú. A good part of this work should be financed by the State, although there would be a part that would be channeled through the European Investment Bank, according to republican sources.

Scrutinize investments

This Fourth Rail Ring is the one that ERC has prioritized to unlock the budgets and has also closed with the socialists a pact to promote the commercial company that is to oversee the State's investments in Catalonia. It is a company participated by the two administrations, the state and the Catalan one, which should materialize the investments that the State projects in Catalan territory. A company that was supposed to have the umbrella of the Investment Consortium, but which came to nothing after Junts voted against the republicans' rule that legally protected it. To finalize the budgets, Esquerra aims to secure another transfer from the State which, for the moment, has not yet specified what it would be.