BarcelonaThe president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, arrived in Moncloa on Friday with an outstretched hand in a round of contacts with regional presidents where Pedro Sánchez has found more adversaries than allies. The Government’s objective was rather to explore ways of collaboration with the State than to put on the table the pending files resulting from the pacts inherited from the executive led by Pere Aragonès or from the agreements between socialists and pro-independence .
The dialogue table, one of the protagonists of the previous legislature, was the forum where some were closed. The last meeting in this space was in December 2023, when Aragonès and Sánchez met at the Palau de la Generalitat. It was planned that there would be a new table in April, but the fall of the Catalan legislature buried it for good. In any case, some of the agreements that emerged have been fulfilled – for example the transfer of the minimum vital income – while others are inherited by the Island government as pending subjects.
Single financing and FLA
The negotiation of a new unique financing model for Catalonia occupies first place in the ranking of open issues that will mark the Catalan legislature. The Socialists have committed to negotiate with the Spanish executive a new system that will allow the Catalan Tax Agency to collect 100% of taxes and contribute to State expenses and inter-territorial solidarity through separate funds. But before putting any proposal on the table, the Island Government has launched a group of experts to consider possible ways to achieve this, with the aim that the Catalan administration can already collect personal income tax which will be paid in Catalonia in 2026. The pact between PSC and ERC for unique funding will hover over the PSOE congress next weekend, despite the fact that the Catalan socialists have already made it clear that their position will not be subject to debate, no matter how many amendments the critics present. At the same time, the Spanish executive has yet to give the green light to the partial forgiveness of the FLA’s debt in Catalonia for a value of 15,000 million, agreed upon at the investiture of Sánchez.
Plurilingualism law
It is one of the agreements that Aragonès and Sánchez reached in the last institutional meeting at the Palau de la Generalitat, before the Catalan budgets for 2023 were derailed by the opposition of the commons at the Hard Rock and the republican leader called elections. The law, which had to be presented before the summer holidays of 2024, wants to guarantee the right of the citizens of Catalonia to address and receive answers in Catalan from the General Administration of the State. The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, reiterated a month ago the commitment of the Spanish government to these regulations and to the pact to promote the use of Catalan in Europe, which Illa tried to speed up during his trip to Brussels· this week What is already underway is the new law on the right to defense, which comes into force on December 4, and which will oblige courts throughout the State to provide Catalan translators, since it says that this is how it must be “if the use of a language, especially the mother tongue or one of the official languages in the autonomous communities, contributes to guaranteeing the exercise of the right of defence”.
Transfer of Suburbs and infrastructures
Since ERC and the PSOE agreed on the transfer of Rodalies with Sánchez’s investiture, steps have been taken to launch the new joint venture that will take over the service. The first transfer should arrive in January 2025 with the R1. At the last meeting of the Joint Commission for Economic and Fiscal Affairs, still under the mandate of Aragonès and on the eve of the agreement to invest in the Island, it was agreed to transfer to the Generalitat 1,000 million for the Regions in the next three years, of which 283 should have been paid before October 31 as a step prior to the transfer as compensation for the operating deficit of Renfe The Spanish executive admits that it is late. At the same time, the Council of Ministers approved on Tuesday the direct grant of subsidies to the Generalitat to strengthen Rodalies worth 201 million. It also has pending duties with the Mediterranean Corridor and access to the Port of Barcelona.
Factory of microchips and desalination plants
In the last meeting with Aragonès, Sánchez signed an agreement with the Government by which Indústria undertook to guarantee financing with 365 million euros from European funds for a microchip factory for Catalonia. This Friday, with the Salvador Illa-Pedro Sánchez meeting, the agreement for the Innofab center, a key scientific-technological infrastructure and the first plant destined to manufacture and test new prototypes of microchips, which will have a Catalan seal and aim to be completed exporting to China or the United States. On the other hand, and to fight the drought, this summer the Council of Ministers gave the go-ahead for investments of 513 million euros to expand the Foix desalination plant and the expansion of the Tordera silver mine . They are, however, on credit: the Generalitat will have to return the money and the works should start in 2025.
Immigration skills
It is, in this case, a debt of the Spanish government to Junts that the Island Government will have to assume. Together, he wrested from Sánchez a pact for the Generalitat to assume the powers in immigration. According to Junts, the agreement will materialize before the end of the year and will allow the Government to have “integral management” of immigration. “We will be able to give a Catalan answer to this question because we will have the instruments to do it from Catalonia”, defended the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, this Thursday. The Generalitat already has powers to welcome and work for immigrants, but the board members demanded that the Government be able to decide on migratory flows.
Research and research
The last meeting of the Joint Committee on Economic and Fiscal Affairs also resulted in an agreement for the State to transfer 2 million to the Generalitat to take over the management of the scholarships, a claim that had been made for three decades dragged, and 7.9 million for the arrears in this concept. The Minister of Territorial Policy admits that work is still underway to make this transfer.
Source: www.ara.cat
