Junqueras gives the PSOE more time to comply with the unique financing

Barcelona"With the aim of implementing the new singular financing system for Catalonia, the agreement will have to be formalized during the first half of 2025 in the Bilateral Commission between the Catalan government and the Spanish government." This is how Salvador Illa's investiture pact between Esquerra and the PSC embodied the commitment to have an agreement with the State finalized during the first half of 2025 that would formalize a new singular financing system for Catalonia, with the aim of having the Catalan Tax Agency collect all taxes, starting with the 2nd of this year. Esquerra president Oriol Junqueras admitted that they will not arrive on time within the agreed deadlines and that the task is difficult.

"The Socialist Party will not meet a date that it itself had set," he acknowledged this Saturday before Esquerra leaders. The Catalan government has announced, in turn, that it plans a meeting of the Generalitat-State Bilateral Commission on July 14 at 12 noon in Barcelona: "Progress is being made," more optimistic sources within the government predict, although they do not specify what agreement they will bring to this meeting.

In an address to the ERC National Council, Junqueras said that the dates "are important," but the "content" is more important: "What is more important than when." "If the PSOE needs a few more days or weeks, let them take them, but what is certain is that they cannot pretend that the agreement is not what Catalonia needs," he concluded.

The Bilateral Commission meeting on July 14th will follow the PSOE federal committee, which must decide who will permanently replace the now former secretary of organization, Santos Cerdán, accused of alleged corruption. It will also follow July 9th, when Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is due to appear to explain his actions. In any case, Oriol Junqueras has said that as long as the Socialists do not comply with the financing pact, the PSOE and PSC cannot count on Esquerra to make "major new agreements."

For weeks, Republican ranks have admitted that things were not moving forward at a good pace, on the one hand due to the complexity of the undertaking, but on the other because of the alleged corruption cases surrounding the Spanish government that have erupted, placing the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, in a difficult position. In fact, Junqueras has said that it is because of this context that compliance with the pact is more difficult.

"The PSOE is not in the best position to make bold decisions, and the financing model requires courage," he stated. He also justified that the new financing model must be processed in the Congress of Deputies and that it will be necessary for the parliamentary majority supporting the Spanish government, which, he admitted, is very diverse, to also agree to the separate financing for Catalonia. In this regard, sources consulted by ARA suggest that a bill would be introduced in the Spanish chamber to regulate the new model for Catalonia, in parallel with the pact formalized between the Generalitat and the State within the framework of the Bilateral Commission.

The question that looms is whether or not this new legislation will be a departure from the common system for the autonomous communities, as announced by Esquerra when it finalized the investiture pact for Salvador Illa. An issue that the Socialists have never publicly endorsed. In his meetings with other autonomous regions such as the Canary Islands and Navarre, the president has avoided talking about leaving the common regime, limiting himself to saying that it will be a model specific to Catalonia, which will develop the Statute of Autonomy and will not be a special regime like that of Navarre and the Basque Country.

A pretext?

Although Junqueras has justified the delay in the financing negotiations by the Spanish government's problems—he said, among other things, that Sumar "loses deputies every day" and the PSOE "expels" them—before the Cerdán case broke, there were already sources suggesting that they would not meet the deadlines for the financing model.

And apart from the agreement in the Generalitat-State Bilateral Commission before June 30, Salvador Illa's investiture agreement also provides for the Catalan Tax Agency to collect personal income tax starting in 2026. A goal that, at the current pace, seems unlikely to be met by the government. Right now there aren't enough workers at the ATC – just in May it was agreed to create 200 new positions – and they are just in the process of assuming a new first tax to get the machinery going: in February it was agreed to take joint responsibility with the Spanish Treasury for collecting the registration tax, but agreements are still being made. as acknowledged by the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, on June 2.

In fact, weeks ago, before the UCO report on Cerdán, the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, was already asking the Republicans for more time on this issue.