Twelve years after the last time it came into force on January 1, the Generalitat budget for next year will has been approved on time. The Catalan Government received En Comú Podem's support and Finance Minister Jaume Giró thanked the party for their responsibility, despite his own party's misgivings about the agreement. En Comú Podem has thus become the executive's partner after CUP dissociated itself from the coalition government between ERC and JxCat, and has conspired to "destabilise" the government for as long as the Catalan government's "autonomist drift" –as opposed to pro-independence– lasts. The CUP's MP Eulàlia Reguant told En Comú representatives they had not helped the country, as they had renounced to put pressure on to obtain improvements in the budget, and instead were happy for a quid pro quo exchange with Barcelona City Council budget. "It is not a time for a fight, it is a time for dialogue and negotiation," En Comú Podem MP Joan Carles Gallego answered. Gallego led the negotiations with the Department of Economy and the Presidency to close the budget.

President Pere Aragonès, Pere Aragonès, began negotiations with En Comú yesterday to get the budgets through Parliament, after the government's priority partner, CUP, positioned itself against it. This Thursday morning first thing a technical meeting between En Comú and representatives from the Presidency and Economy Departments was held. It lasted from quarter past nine in the morning until almost twelve noon: the secretary general of Economy, Jordi Cabrafiga; the secretary general of the Presidency, Núria Cuenca; and the director general of Interdepartmental Coordination, Marc Ramentol, on behalf of the Government; and the deputies Joan Carles Gallego –who leads the negotiation– and Susana Segovia, as well as the group coordinator, Ximo Balaguer, on behalf of En Comú.

Five axes and dozens of concrete proposals. These are the conditions that the CUP put on the Government's table in order to shift its opposition to the budget: as ARA has learnt, the CUP demand, on the one hand, scrapping the candidacy to the Winter Olympic Games and the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Complex, as well as putting the new tender for Catalonia's racetrack in Montmeló on hold. On the other hand, CUP also demands higher income tax for those earning over €60,000 a year and a wealth tax on the super rich. The proceeds would be used to fight climate change.

The Catalan Government is pressed for time when it comes to reaching an agreement on budget with the CUP, which has already named its conditions. In the meantime, the possibility of an alternative partner generates misgivings within the ERC-JxCat coalition Government. This was on show this Wednesday in the Catalan Parliament, where president Pere Aragonès asked En Comú to the negotiating table, to JxCat's clear discomfort. JxCat's parliamentary leader Albert Batet hinted that this offer had not been agreed within the coalition. Batet asked the president to be "responsible" and respect the agreements he reached with the three pro-independence parties that voted Aragonès in. Batet also reproached him for opening the door to "non-agreed majorities", in allusion to En Comú, and called on pro-independence forces to find a "shared strategy".

"Reactivate, recover, transform and help give as many opportunities as possible to the cultural sector". These are Catalan Culture Minister Natàlia Garriga's goals. Appearing before the Culture Committee, she explained her department's budget, which had already been made public last November 9: the Generalitat plans to increase its spending on culture by 28.3% (€82.5m) compared to 2020, the last time a budget was approved. The budget for the department stands at €389.4m, which represents 1.3% of the Generalitat's overall budget.

The best demonstration of a government's solidity is the approval of budgets. In a coalition government, this is even truer. And in a coalition government without a parliamentary majority, even more so. The situation of coming out of the double pandemic crisis, which has been a health crisis and still is an economic one, gives an added plus to this peremptory need for governmental stability. If we add to all this the fact that, thanks precisely to the Next Generation European funds to drive us out of the crisis, the 2022 budgets will be the record budgets of the Generalitat de Catalunya, there is no longer any discussion. Hence why the Minister of Economy, Jaume Giró, of JxCat, insisted yesterday with maximum emphasis in the presentation of the numbers in the Parc de la Ciutadella that this project of accounts will go ahead whether yes or not. "Budgets or budgets", he concluded. Despite maintaining the CUP as a priority parliamentary partner, and giving all the margin to the anticapitalists to take the decision in their own way, he did not rule out other alliances if necessary. Because the goal of the country, and of the government, is that the Catalan administration does not have to go to 2022 with budgets that have been postponed, which would take away a lot of strength from its political action. Behind this forceful stance is the shared conviction of ERC and JxCat to strengthen the pro-independence coalition executive and to demonstrate their pragmatism in order to move the country forward in difficult and decisive times. The way out of the crisis calls for great efforts all over the world, and the public sector has to be a driving force and an example. If this engine remains lame, if the opportunity of expansive budgets is lost, which, moreover, emphasise both social policies (health, education, housing, culture) and economic reactivation, as well as incorporating programmatic novelties such as the Ministry of Feminisms, it will be doing the country a sad favour.