ERC admits that singular funding is late
ERC spokesperson Isaac Albert says the process is "slowing down" by pointing the finger at Montero, while the government commits to meeting the June 30 deadline.
BarcelonaThere are just over two weeks left until the deadline that Esquerra and the PSC had set for themselves to agree on a new one-off financing for Catalonia expires. But there is still no news, not even from the group of experts set up by the Ministry of Economy to propose the new guidelines that would scrupulously adhere to the timetable agreed with Esquerra. But alarm bells went off when the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, stated that "sometimes it takes a little more time" to reach an agreement such as the one on one-off financing, in an interview with The Vanguard After the Conference of Presidents.
ERC members are starting to grow impatient and lament "the slowdown" in negotiations. In an interview with Ser Catalunya this Thursday, ERC spokesperson and Deputy Secretary of Communication, Isaac Albert, attributed this to the fact that First Vice President and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, be a candidate in the Andalusian elections"When someone is more concerned about other issues than the financing of Catalonia, this bothers and worries us," she warned. The Department of Economy simply notes that they continue "working to meet deadlines." This is not the first time the Republicans have complained about Montero: they already protested how the minister tried to exert pressure during the negotiation of the regional debt forgiveness for Pedro Sánchez's investiture.
After the warning from the ERC, the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, did maintain this Thursday that he will meet the "deadlines and objectives" set. However, he acknowledged that it is a "definitely complex and very important" issue that requires "discretion," he said on Catalunya Ràdio. The specific financing was not addressed in the last bilateral meeting between the Government and the Spanish executive, at the end of February. The commitment was to hold another bilateral meeting before June 30 to formalize an institutional understanding that would reproduce what is already included in the investiture agreement between the ERC and the PSC: the development of a "Catalan treasury" that can "progressively" assume the management of all taxes, starting with personal income tax in 2026. A delay in the schedule would add difficulties to a process that the Ministry of Economy already admits is "complex," due to the volume of management represented by this tax, the most massive of all.
Waiting for the experts
The expert group's report was to be made public between May and June, the minister announced at the last meeting of the State-Generalitat Joint Committee on Economic and Fiscal Affairs. At that same meeting It was agreed that the Catalan Tax Agency and the State Tax Administration Agency would carry out "joint management" of the vehicle registration tax, a kind of pilot test before the ATC has to assume the Personal Income Tax. But the agreement that was to specify this collaboration has not yet been signed, according to the Department of Economy. A first step has been taken to reinforce the ATC staff with another 102 people for the income tax campaign, with the aim of gaining "muscle" for next year.
The big unknown regarding the new financing is what legislative path it will propose to achieve this unique model: ERC has always maintained that it will mean leaving the common regime of the LOFCA with a "solidarity economic agreement", while Romero speaks of "generalizable singular financing". A way of saying that, if other communities want to benefit from an improvement in financing, they should be able to do so. This is a thesis that the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, defended at the Conference of Presidents when they men The PP's supporters forced the debate on financing, with the idea of putting Pedro Sánchez on the ropes. The Government did not propose including it on the agenda, arguing that it is an issue it addresses bilaterally with the State. However, Isla took the opportunity to argue before the PP that it is necessary to address a reform of regional financing away from the "noise" and that it is fair to Catalonia. which is now the third largest contributor and the tenth largest recipient.
