Orbital line, financing and Catalan boost: the agreements between the Government and ERC for the budgets

BarcelonaThe agreement between the Government and ERC for the 2026 budgets, the first of Salvador Illa's presidency, is already signed. The president and Oriol Junqueras have signed the document in a brief ceremony early this morning at the Palau de la Generalitat, after the Republicans formally gave their yes this Monday to the accounts. The Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, will provide all the details at a press conference starting at 9 am. Junqueras is expected to appear around half past eleven.

Awaiting the fine print, in recent days some of the key issues that Esquerra has requested in exchange for its endorsement of the numbers have been presented. After the party yielded and agreed to renounce IRPF revenue as a red line, its main prize in the negotiation has been the so-called orbital railway line. It has also secured the reinforcement of the Catalan Tax Agency with 527 million or an agreement for Catalonia to have the majority of the Consortium of the Free Trade Zone.

The forecast is that, after this Tuesday's staging, the Government will approve the budgets in an executive council this Friday. Before, however, it will be necessary to go through Madrid, where this Wednesday the State-Generalitat Bilateral Commission will meet to validate the points of the agreement with the Republicans that depend on the Spanish government. The Government, moreover, has pending the review of the budgetary agreement with the other essential partner, the Comuns, who have requested to update the pact with issues related to housing and mobility.

This Tuesday's development comes 24 hours after the Government and Esquerra sealed the pact for the fourth ring road - the orbital line - in a joint event in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia. This project, which has been shelved since 2010, has been the main catalyst for the budget negotiations. The timeline agreed by both parties is that the infrastructure, which will connect the second metropolitan ring without passing through Barcelona, will be executed in the next 15 years and completed in 2041.