Junqueras puts pressure on the financing negotiations: "We're a long way off."

BarcelonaThe new financing for Catalonia is at a key moment, but fraught with uncertainty. Although an agreement on the improved contribution to Catalonia may be closer between the ERC and the Ministry of Finance, led by Socialist María Jesús Montero, the unknowns multiply when it comes to specifying key aspects such as the ordinality or the timeline. ERC leader Oriol Junqueras made this clear this Thursday by issuing a string of warnings that increase the pressure on the state executive: "We are very far away," he insisted at an event at the College of Economists of Catalonia, referring to the negotiations with the Socialists. "The proposals they are making us reduce the adjusted population; they do not improve the ordinality or the regulatory capacity," he said regarding the foundations that should govern the new model. Montero's proposal, for the Republicans, is not sufficiently solid.

The discrepancy regarding the adjusted population assigned to Catalonia is that the Spanish government is starting from a figure far removed from the current 8 million. According to Junqueras, "no one will accept that if the population continues to grow, the calculation is based on a smaller population than the current one" because "it means fewer resources." But neither will it guarantee "gaining in ordinality," that is, at least being above the current reality, which places Catalonia as the community that contributes the most resources to the common fund and relegates it to the tenth when it comes to receiving them. This is not ordinality in the strict sense, which would be placing the Principality as the community that contributes the most and the third that receives the most, and the pro-independence leader has tried to explain: "Is ERC in a position to achieve everything? Unfortunately, no."

Despite this statement, Junqueras doubled down on his warning, pointing the finger at Montero for the impasse in the debate on ordinality: "It hasn't been resolved, among other reasons, because the minister explicitly refuses to include the concept." The rebuke comes just after Montero promised to convene the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF) imminently to address the path to stability and also debate the new financing model, with the question of whether there will be a firm proposal. For the minister, the level of detail of the debate will depend on the status of negotiations with ERC and whether there is a prior agreement with the Republicans, but if this doesn't happen, she expects the axes of the system to be addressed anyway. This has caused unease in ERC: "If the ministry takes a financing agreement to the CPFF, we will find ourselves in the parliamentary process in Congress within six months; what they haven't negotiated with us, they will have to negotiate," she said. And he threw another barb: "If not, the proposal they bring will be of no use to them."

The figure isn't that important.

Junqueras downplayed the improved funding figure for Catalonia. "The funding model is a figure, yes, it's very important, but it's more than just a figure," he insisted. His argument is that it's also vital and essential to maintain the adjusted population and to gain ordinality and regulatory capacity because "a figure without these elements is useless." The example he used to confirm that the figure is completely insufficient was the increase in resources agreed upon in the last funding model, launched in 2009: "The 3.8 billion figure that was agreed upon vanished after a few months because the model wasn't well designed." He thus warned that he is seeking a "good agreement" rather than a quick understanding.

In fact, he also stressed that there is another important issue, which is "the collection of personal income tax," and insisted that the Socialists must "fulfill the agreements" they have made, although he asked all parties and society to support ERC's "battle" for singular financing because they all used to. "We will defend it like beasts," he insisted. A fight in which pressure also has a timeline, since Junqueras's deputy, Elisenda Alamany, has set a deadline for the Spanish government to present a proposal for a new financing model before the end of the year. "The ball is in their court," he said on SER Catalunya.

However, the dean of the College of Economists, Carlos Puig de Travy, who favors one-off financing, did not predict that a completely satisfactory model would be developed: "We economists are not very optimistic that it will arrive as designed," he lamented. On the other hand, the Republican leader insisted that the Catalan budget will not be on the table at the headquarters on Calàbria Street until there is a "good agreement" on financing, eschewing the "haste" he seems to see among the Socialists. If they did not reach the understanding they are seeking, they would not approve the model. One of the cards he already showed this Thursday are the seven deputies in Congress, essential for the initiative, which is part of Salvador Illa's investiture pact—and which complicates his term due to the lack of accounts until there are key advances in the model and in the total collection of personal income tax.