The Ministry of Finance is working against the clock to present to the Congress of Deputies a draft budget “on time and in the form”, with the aim of being able to have the accounts approved before December 31, 2024. The calendar is against the by María Jesus Montero. The Constitution establishes that the Government must present the text to the Congress of Deputies “at least three months before the expiration of those of the previous year”. First, the vice president must once again submit to the plenary session the path of stability on which the Accounts will be based, after failing to approve it last July. Montero should presents -during the month of September- the same project that already failed more than a month agoafter Junts decided – by surprise – to abandon the initiative, thus thwarting Moncloa’s plans.
Everything will depend on the support that Sánchez manages to establish in the coming weeks. The challenge is great. The president must strengthen the vote in favor of the path of all the groups of the investiture bloc, including that of the deputies of Carles Puigdemont, who have already renounced part of their conditions. If necessary, and with the bases validated by the Lower House, a tough and tangled negotiation will begin, marked by the spirit of the times. Sources from the Ministry of Finance recognize that the success of the Accounts This will depend on the “speed of parliamentary processing”To achieve this, it is essential that discussions with the hardline parties – such as Junts, ERC or Podemos – do not drag on too long.
THE postconvergent They acted last Thursday, after weeks of silence. Deputy Isidre Gavín took advantage of Óscar Puente’s presence in Congress to launch the first of his parliamentary group’s demands to support the budget project. Together requires increasing state investment in the Catalonia Cercanías networkalthough -for the moment- she has not given figures on the situation. After that, the citizens of Puigdemont should present to the government a series of demands -economic and political- in exchange for their support.
The same goes for the IRC. The party led by Marta Rovira is preparing a new series of conditions, after the agreement reached with the CPS that led to the investiture of Salvador Illa. The agreement was sealed after the commitment to develop a “single” financing for Catalonia, which the Treasury does not interpret as an “economic agreement”, as the Republicans defend. The vice-president will have to explain the terms of the agreement this Wednesday during an appearance in the Senate at the request of the Popular Party.
Added to this are the consequences of the deterioration of relations between the PSOE and Podemos. Those of Ione Belarra stretched the rope last week, when its secretary general warned that the socialists would not respect the agreement signed with ERC. “The Socialist Party does not intend to fulfill what it announced. I believe that once again, the Socialist Party is going to fail to keep its promises and that it has made a fool of itself by trying to obtain the mandate of Mr. Illa. investiture, which is absolutely unacceptable”, Belarra said last Tuesday. In addition, the purple spokesperson, Pablo Fernández, anticipated the end of the “progressive” legislature. The party assumes that the Executive will be forced to extend – for the second consecutive year – the 2023 Accounts. However, they have set two conditions for sitting down to negotiate new ones: they will not support a text that includes an increase in the Defense budget, and They will not allow the project to hide “not a single cut”.
Other minority groups, such as the Canarian Coalition or the BNG, point the finger at regional funding, after the agreement in Catalonia. The Canarian nationalist spokesperson, Cristina Valido, does not rule out supporting the text, but recognizes that the agreement with the ERC has raised blisters among the rest of the parties on which Sánchez will have to rely. The Galician Ana Pontón has already warned that she will try to obtain from Montero a commitment to bring Galicia’s funding closer to that which Catalonia will begin to benefit from, or to that of the Basque Country.
