Albert Dalmau (Barcelona, 1990) visits l'ARA after a week in which, despite everything, the Government has saved a match ball and has gained time to approve the budgets.The government yesterday made a gesture quite unprecedented in Catalan political history, which is the withdrawal of the budgets. Is it a tactical withdrawal?

This is evidence that Catalonia needs a new budget after two extensions. It is also evidence that the negotiating strategies of the PSC and ERC to reach an agreement had reached a dead end. With the Catalan government's decision to withdraw the budget proposal (a gesture unprecedented in Catalan politics) and ERC's announcement that it is willing to negotiate without red lines, the situation has been unblocked, and a possible agreement before the summer is now in sight.

The master plan for the Catalan government's own treasury, commissioned by Indra and released this Thursday, represents a clash with reality for both the PSC and ERC. Indeed, it can now be stated that the content of the agreement signed between the two parties to inaugurate Salvador Illa was unworkable in terms of deadlines, and that it was therefore impossible for the Catalan Tax Agency (ATC) to collect personal income tax for this year and next year in one year. The document makes it clear that next year, as well as in 2027, the ATC will only be able to offer "assistance" to citizens in filing their tax returns, but not the actual collection. And that it will not be until 2028 that "the tax application of certain functions within the scope of personal income tax" will begin. That is, the document doesn't even set a timeframe for when the ATC will be able to assume 100% of the management and collection of personal income tax, and simply establishes the steps to be taken in what it calls the "first phase of deployment," which will last three years.