In its efforts to exhaust the government in the Senate, the Popular Party did the PSOE a favor on Wednesday. Whether the socialists took advantage of it is another matter. The opposition had imposed the express appearance of Vice President María Jesús Montero to report on the financing agreement for the Generalitat signed by the CPS and Esquerra that made possible the investiture of Salvador Illa. The one that agrees on a “single” financing model for Catalonia, whose government will be responsible for collecting all taxes if it is approved by Congress.
For reasons that are hard to understand, the socialists decided that the August holidays were more important than giving a detailed explanation of an agreement that everyone knows is not an easy sell in several regions of Spain, not even within the PSOE itself. So they gave the PP free rein to describe the pact in the most horrifying terms. All they had to do was say that the first-born children of Andalusian families would be sent to Catalan territory to learn to dance the sardana or some other pagan activity. That is what happens if you let the debate be dominated by those who seek to plunge you into misery.
In the heat of the parliamentary debate, Montero marked the limits in his own way: “And what the agreement says is what the agreement says, not what each of us believes the agreement says. And what the agreement does not say is what it does not say. Is that clear? At least, as a tongue twister, it is easier than three sad tigers.
The Minister of Finance highlighted the essence of what was already known. Catalonia will collect taxes and then finance the public services of the State that are provided there and others in solidarity with the other territories of Spain “so that the services provided to citizens are similar”. Montero said that “the agreement does not speak of an economic agreement”, compared to what exists in Euskadi and Navarre. It does not seem very different either.
Politically, it is an ungrateful agreement. Neither Junts nor Esquerra are very grateful. Senator Eduard Pujol mocked the concessions obtained by ERC and said that Junts was against “replacing coffee for all with kalimotxo for all.”
Sara Bailac, from Esquerra, said that there must be an end to the “fiscal plunder” of Catalonia, which reaches a gigantic figure equivalent to 10% of Catalan GDP per year. Regarding solidarity, he said that it must be limited by the principle of ordinality and the postulate that the tax burden is similar in all communities. This last issue is thorny and contradictory. The nationalists are demanding more fiscal autonomy, but it seems that they refuse to allow other autonomous communities to do the same.
The agreement is a commitment that has not yet been finalized, which means that no one knows what its repercussions will be until the figures are known. The PP already knows everything. Juanma Moreno said that it is “a theft” in Andalusia, because the right believes that it is never wrong to attack the Catalans in this community. The Andalusian socialists still do not have a very convincing response to these accusations, which are also full of hyperbole.
The Catalan nationalists are not the only ones increasing the figures of the grievance. The PP of Andalusia claims that the region has stopped receiving 15 billion since 2009, although on some days it is capable of increasing this figure by several billion.
In Spain, almost everyone says they are underfunded. The fault never lies with the regional governments, which is very convenient when you have to answer for the lack of quality of certain public services. If you have to wait months to see a public health specialist, they will tell you that it is Madrid’s (the central government’s) fault.
Pedro Sánchez’s solution, as he explained in a speech on Wednesday, is to rain millions. He has pledged to double the Territorial Cohesion Fund, which helps compensate for differences between regions. Like Montero, the president boasted about the money that has reached the Autonomous Communities from the Central Administration in recent years: “In seven years, the progressive government has transferred 935 billion euros to the autonomies, 300 billion more than the PP in the same period of time.” It must also be recognized that the economic situation was very different in the Rajoy years.
The Vice President gave a better example in the Senate, a funnier example. After the government reduced the VAT on food products, which the PP insisted on, the regional governments asked for compensation for the loss of income that this caused them. In public, you ask for the reduction of taxes and then in private you start crying because it causes a drop in the funds that correspond to the Administration that you manage. But don’t let anyone find out.
To know more about the new financing model for Catalonia, we will have to wait until the bill reaches Congress and someone in the government thinks of doing a calculation in pure and quick euros, taking for example previous years as a reference. In the meantime, we will have to be content with the phrase of the socialist senator Amparo Marco in plenary session: “You only have to travel around Spain to see that each community is singular, unique and extraordinary.”
Of course, it is difficult to know how the idea “Murcia, how beautiful you are” translates fiscally. Let’s hope that Montero will explain it one day to Congress.
