The Government gets away with it: the definitive 'round' of the budgets begins

BarcelonaAfter swallowing the frog of withdrawing the first budgets he presented as President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa is now, indeed, beginning the path for Parliament to give the green light to the first accounts of the legislature. This Friday, the bill will be approved in the executive council convened for early morning and, subsequently, the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, will deliver the document to the Catalan chamber for it to begin processing. The Government is thus launching the processing of the accounts again after securing the necessary support from its two investiture partners, Esquerra and Comuns.

The socialist executive wanted to let the Andalusian elections pass to set in motion all the machinery to approve the budgets before the end of July, as agreed with ERC. Negotiations between socialists and republicans derailed in March, when the red line ERC had set to start negotiating the accounts, the transfer of IRPF collection, clashed with the State's refusal to open this folder, which, on the other hand, it had endorsed for Salvador Illa's investiture. The Government ended up withdrawing the accounts – it presented them without ERC's support secured – and Oriol Junqueras' party stopped setting IRPF as a sine qua non condition for negotiation.

Both parties did a reset and opened two months of negotiations that have culminated in the presentation of an agreement this week. The orbital railway line has ended up being the key to the accounts, a request that Esquerra put on the table, along with the investment company, which is to oversee the money that the State allocates to Catalonia, and also that Catalonia gain majority control of the Consorci de la Zona Franca.

In February, the Government had already reached an agreement with the commons, but Jéssica Albiach's party wanted to update its pact. This past week it has been negotiating with the executive, among other measures, to increase the money allocated to housing, and finally, they have agreed to reach 2,500 million euros. Jéssica Albiach's party also agreed with the Government to study changes in the R-Airport and for it to become a commuter line.

The February numbers

The accounts that Salvador Illa presented in February reached almost 50,000 million euros: the exact figure was 49,162 million, which represented an increase of 22.8% –9,126 million– compared to the 2023 budget, the last one approved by the Generalitat under the government of Pere Aragonès. Compared to the Generalitat's expenditure last year, the increase was 10.3%.