At an event organised by ARA, former Catalan president Jordi Pujol stated he demanded an independent taxation system for Catalonia –similar to the one the Basque Country enjoys– during Spain's transition to democracy, in 1980. The claim, however, has been denied by Pedro Luis Uriarte, who was then Basque Finance Minister. Uriarte claims that the Spanish government offered a similar deal to Catalan nationalists and that they refused. He also claims that he was a direct witness to the offer.

The unexpected intervention of former Catalan president Jordi Pujol at an event organised by ARA, in which four Catalan finance ministers spoke about the underfinancing of Catalonia, have brought back to the table the debate on whether the Generalitat missed the opportunity to demand its own taxation system during the Transition. Beyond the responsibility of this or that political representative or the veracity of the Spanish government's alleged offer, the fact is that the independent taxation was not on the Catalan nationalist agenda at the time. In the minds of the Catalan politicians of the time, there were other priorities, such as, for example, putting self-government on the fast track and obtaining tools to be able to protect the Catalan language. Few people, with the exception of Trias Fargas, had seriously studied the question of financing.