Accelerating investments in Catalonia and 25,000 Mossos by 2030: all the agreements of the Generalitat-State Commission

BarcelonaThe Bilateral Commission between the Generalitat and the State met this Monday to unblock agreements on security, justice and investments after two years of paralysis –although the Statute establishes that it meets twice a year–. There was no news on individual financing, the hot potato of the legislature, but there was news to give a boost to pending commitments and to demonstrate the harmony between both executives, of the same political colour: thus, the Catalan and Spanish governments have sealed an agreement to increase the number of Mossos officers to 25,000 agents in 2020 and 2025 and 2028, with the aim of equaling the average of judges per inhabitant of the state to that of Catalonia. This Monday the Joint Commission on Transfers was also held, which had not met for almost fifteen years, to unblock 14 transfers that had already been agreed by the ERC government.

The other news of the day is in terms of investments. In the investiture agreement, ERC and the PSC had agreed to create a "consortium for investments" between the Generalitat and the State to improve the degree of compliance of the State with Catalonia, in view of historical data of very low execution. In fact, it is still pending for the State to make public data on budget execution in Catalonia. This Monday it was agreed to set up a working group to begin designing this consortium, with the idea that it can function before the end of the year. A working group will also be created on the third additional provision of the Statute on the recognition of the debts of the State with the Generalitat between 2009 and 2013 to advance in the pending compensations. The Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau, estimates that before the summer there could be an agreement to settle what remains in this regard.

And there will still be a third working group that will study the creation of a single window from which both State and Generalitat procedures can be carried out. At a local level, the Generalitat will assume full powers to appoint state officials for the town councils, where there is a shortage of technicians that hinders the proper functioning of the local administration. It is a model that already works in the Basque Country.

Last week there was a meeting The first of the four bilateral commissions, the infrastructure commission. In a press conference, the minister Dalmau has assured that the resumption of the bilateral meetings denotes that a "new stage" has begun between both institutions, aimed at solving "the problems" of the Catalans: "To govern, to agree and to comply. This is what the government of President Isla is dedicated to," he added. In fact, he has underlined the "policy of collaboration" between both governments, in the face of the policy of "confrontation." He did so together with the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, with whom he sealed the agreements. Torres claimed the more than twenty agreements in total signed this Monday: "Politics is more dialogue than confrontation," he stressed.

The new meeting of the Bilateral

To follow up on the agreements signed on Monday, the Bilateral Commission will hold another extraordinary meeting before the summer. The Security Board will also meet in this first half of the year to work on the agreements on security, With the transfer of jurisdiction over ports and airports on the horizon –scheduled for September.

It will not be until the Joint Committee on Economic and Fiscal Affairs on Friday that aspects of the new financing could be specified. Dalmau has not confirmed this, but he has stated that "before the summer" there should be another meeting - both governments have planned an extraordinary bilateral meeting - which should serve to develop "significant progress" on the new financing. The minister has recalled that the agreement with ERC establishes that this new financing must be developed during the first half of this year: "We are within the schedule."

Scholarships

The agreements reached by the Transfer Commission include the management of grants in the Generalitat, but also hydraulic works that are part of the urban wastewater treatment programme in the Ebro basin and the reuse of water from the Baix Llobregat treatment plant. These include, for example, treatment plants in Priorat, Noguera and Montsià, as well as the construction of a desalination plant for part of the wastewater from the Baix Llobregat treatment plant. Both governments have also validated two transfers approved in 1980 in the field of nature conservation in Pallars Sobirà and Alt Urgell. In addition, they have agreed to expand the facilities of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center with the transfer of a new building and to start the procedures to open the CAP Casc Antic in Barcelona.

Early this morning, Dalmau called the parliamentary groups, the unions, the employers' association and the municipal entities to explain the content of the agreements. The PP, the CUP, the Aliança Catalana and Vox have abandoned the minister, despite having received an invitation from the Government.