This March 13th marks exactly two years since, after losing the budget vote, the then President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, decided to call elections. The accounts for that fiscal year had an insurmountable obstacle: Hard Rock. On one hand, the PSC demanded that he unblock the project if he wanted their votes, but on the other hand, Comuns assured him that if the macro-casino went ahead, they would oppose it. An insurmountable dilemma. Aragonès maintained his commitment to the socialists, and Comuns kept their word and voted against the budget. President Aragonès called early elections and lost them in favor of Salvador Illa. Months later, Illa also needed the support of other parties to be invested as president, and once again, Hard Rock was the bargaining chip: one of the conditions set by Comuns and Republicans was that he eliminate the tax reductions that Artur Mas's government approved in 2014 to lure investors from the Seminole tribe of Florida, owners of Hard Rock. Instead of paying 55% of the taxes levied on gambling, they would only pay 10%.

This Monday marks exactly one year since the Catalan elections of May 12. And while some things have changed (first and foremost, the political orientation of the government), others remain unchanged. This is the case with the urban planning process for the Hard Rock megaproject, one of the key players in the election: the then-president, Pere Aragonès. dissolved Parliament when it was unable to approve the 2024 budget due to the cross-veto between the PSC and Comuns over this tourist complex in Vila-seca and Salou. A year later, Aragonès maintained this Monday that he does not regret having brought forward the elections because there was a "blockade" that made governability unviable and because of the "clamp between PSC and Junts" over the Hard Rock. "There was an interest in the Republican government not continuing," he told Ser Catalunya in relation to the lack of support to approve the budget. In any case, the understanding that ERC, Comuns, and the PSC could not reach was possible after the elections, when the three parties agreed, in the investiture agreements, to eliminate the tax privilege at this casino. With the Department of Territory in the hands of the Socialists and the tax privilege already rejected by the Parliament, how is the project doing?

New controversy over the Hard Rock complex in Camp de Tarragona. This time, the dispute revolves around the amount that the Government should pay if it stops the macro-project. At the beginning of the year, The Country The report echoed a document from the ERC Government that estimated the compensation that would have to be paid in the event of cancellation at up to 50 million euros. The CUP requested this report from the legal office of the PSC Government, but the document sent to them by the Ministry of Economy does not include this figure – it was in an annex that they have not sent to the anti-capitalist party. Furthermore, in the report, the legal office sets out various ways available to the Generalitat to disassociate itself from the project without having to pay anything or, in any case, having to pay much smaller compensations. What would be the price of cancelling the Hard Rock? From 0 to 50 million, according to the executive itself, depending on how it is interpreted judicially.