The Government agrees with the Commons to allocate 850 million for housing to offset the budget shortfall.

BarcelonaThey were supposed to announce the agreement last Monday, but the power outage led the Government and the Commons to postpone it. Until this Monday, when the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, and the president of the Commons in the Parliament, Jéssica Albiach, appeared at a press conference to explain a pact in exchange for the Commons' support for the second credit supplement, which should give oxygen to the Generalitat's accounts after the Government ran out of budget for this year. Both parties have agreed to allocate €850 million of their own funds to housing, in addition to reaching 100 inspectors before the end of the year to enforce the housing law—60 new agents should be ready by June 30.

All of this must come from the first and second credit supplements that the Government has already approved, but which the Parliament still needs to validate. The first injection of public money was about 2.1 billion euros. –the Catalan parliament's plenary session must approve them this week– and the second, for 1.3 billion. According to the government, the 850 million euros approved for housing will be included in this almost 3.5 billion, although the executive itself admitted that items will have to be "reprioritized" to accommodate them. "One of the efforts we ask of the ministers is that when there are requests from the groups, they reprioritize within the departments. There are no more resources than what will come: about 4 billion euros, you already know that. In the requests made by one or the other, if there are no more resources, what must be done is reprioritize; that means giving in." In other words, the government must advance or postpone planned investments based on the requests of ERC and Comuns.

The details of how this distribution would work have not yet been specified. Last week, ERC already agreed with the executive its support for this second credit supplement. Of these 1.3 billion, almost 1 billion must be allocated to pay salaries and to cope with the increase in the CPI, while 388 were to be used for Donald Trump's plan to combat tariffs.

Of the pact signed this Monday by Comunes with the Government, Jéssica Albiach has especially highlighted these 850 million euros in housing, which will prioritize the construction of permanent public housing, the promotion of social rentals, cooperative housing, and also the rehabilitation of the current housing stock. These 850 million of own funds would be added to the 600 million in credit lines from the Catalan Institute of Finance (ICF), which would lead to the largest investment in housing by the Generalitat, of 1.45 billion. The Commons have also agreed to launch a specific anti-eviction unit by September, which they expect to be staffed with "at least" 50 officers, in addition to preparing a report on "the impact of racism" on access to the real estate market.

Jéssica Albiach's party has also agreed to allocate €13 million to roll out the oral health law, and €10 million to implement the National Pact for Mental Health. Last week, the Commons announced that this second supplementary credit would include €20 million for public energy.

The third package of public money

Both Romero and Albiach emphasized that this is a "partial" agreement and that both parties must now negotiate the final part of the credit supplement to offset the lack of budget. In this regard, the Comuns leader has outlined the areas they will prioritize: education, social rights, poverty, and territorial investments. "The investiture agreements must be fulfilled with or without budgets," she stated. "Now there are 500 million euros left that we will have to see how we finalize; we would like it to be before May," added Minister Romero. ERC, for its part, has not publicly stated its priorities because it wants them to depend on the progress of investiture agreements, such as the new financing model or the transfer of commuter rail services.