Catalonia continues to receive a third of all the funds the central government has allocated to the autonomous communities since 2012 through extraordinary mechanisms such as the Regional Liquidity Fund (FLA). According to data from the Ministry of Finance, from that year until the allocation for the first quarter of 2026, the total amount for Catalonia, through various extraordinary instruments, has reached €160,722.3 million. This represents 32.8% of the more than €488 billion allocated to the territories under the common regime, which are used to cover the deficit and pay outstanding bills and debts. However, the ranking changes when the estimate is calculated in euros per capita. In this case, the Valencian Community leads the way, with €22,461 per person, given the increase in resources received by this autonomous community to mitigate the effects of the October 2024 storm, compared to €19,676.4 in Catalonia. Two issues currently on the table, agreed upon between the Spanish government and the ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia), directly affect regional finances, despite the polarization and difficulties in securing parliamentary support. One is the forgiveness of approximately €17 billion of Catalonia's FLA (Regional Liquidity Fund) debt, out of a total of more than €83 billion for all the autonomous communities, representing around 24% of the current regional debt. This was approved by the Council of Ministers and is pending ratification by the Congress of Deputies. The other essential element is the new financing model, which faces the challenge of providing specific provisions for Catalonia, but also for the other regions. The upcoming meeting scheduled for this Thursday between the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the leader of Esquerra Republicana, Oriol Junqueras, must implement it and address issues such as maintaining the principle of ordinality; that is, ensuring that once resources are contributed to the common fund, Catalonia does not fall too far behind other territories. According to the settlements of the current financing model, which expired in 2014, Catalonia is the third largest contributor to the system, behind Madrid and the Balearic Islands, but it falls to tenth place when the distribution is based on state spending and investment, and drops even further when the price differential is taken into account.

The Catalan government will request a total of €8.538 billion from the Regional Liquidity Fund (FLA) next year, a similar amount to that requested in 2025 (€8.488 billion, of which it received €8.113 billion). This decision means moving away from resorting to the markets for financing again, as it had planned to do starting next year. to obtain around 5% of the total debtIn fact, the date has been repeatedly postponed, although the finances, still complicatedThey have been improving and the Catalan government has achieved for the first time in 13 years Financing from banks totaling 3.5 billionto lower the cost of the 2023 FLA (Regional Liquidity Fund). Agencies such as Fitch, Moody's, and DBRS have also removed the junk bond label from Catalan debt and given it a rating that considers it more reliable.

These are hot days as far as Cercanías and also Media Distancia are concerned. But there is no immediate remedy for this, because it is not a consequence of stupidity, but of a model of national construction in Spain expressed with the infrastructure policy. A model established for centuries, which we discussed at length in Spain, capital ParisThis model was challenged by the independence process, which was dismantled by the incompetence of the protagonists in the autonomous institutions and the determination of those who opposed it from the Spanish institutions. In the Process, not in the model. But shedding tears over milk already spilled is only an exercise in melancholy that helps neither the person who does it nor the person who receives it. The infrastructures will remain as they are, because politics will continue to be the same; those who decide know that all this mess has not had and will not have electoral sanction. Identity weighs more. And in a couple of decades it will be talked about again, if at all.

The PSOE, with Esquerra, had agreed to forgive, in Catalonia, a part of the autonomous liquidity fund, the FLA, which is one of the things that had us complaining –I think rightly– at the time when we were asking for independence. It is about "forgiving" part of a credit that the State granted to the autonomous regions because, at least in the Catalan case, it does not pay the money in arrears that it owes. It is perverse, yes.

Without failing to emphasize the good news that the Generalitat does not have to return 17,104 million to the State, yesterday was a great farce. In yesterday's episode we heard autonomous communities indignant because they will pay less; the Spanish government turning into generosity what was a pact so that the PSOE could invest Pedro Sánchez, loser of the 2023 elections; the Spanish government putting on the medal of forgiving the Generalitat money that if the Generalitat were well financed would not have had to leave Catalonia, and, above all, we saw again the fat saint christ, the tranquilizer of socialist voters, the mother of all the Spanish political justifications of essential use when the concepts money and Catalonia They appear in the same sentence: "Avoid territorial grievances."

Without failing to emphasize the good news that the Generalitat does not have to return 17,104 million to the StateYesterday's episode was a great farce. In yesterday's episode we heard autonomous communities indignant because they will pay less; the Spanish government turning into generosity what was a pact so that the PSOE could invest Pedro Sánchez, loser of the 2023 elections; the Spanish government taking credit for forgiving the Generalitat money that if the Generalitat were well financed would not have had to leave Catalonia, and, above all, we saw again the fat Holy Christ, the tranquilizer of socialist voters, the mother of all Spanish political justifications that are essential when the concepts of money and Catalonia come up together.