The Catalan concert will significantly reduce the state’s resources and its capacity to deal with crises like that of DANA which devastated Valencia. This is the opinion of economic experts like Santiago Lago Peñas, one of the invited by the Senate to make a presentation on the different consequences that the agreement signed between the PSC and the ERC could have which led to the ‘agreement. the inauguration of Salvador Illa.
The cost for the socialists of taking back the keys to the Generalitat is increasingly high. Santiago Lago Peñasprofessor of applied economics at the University of Santiago, appeared this Friday in the Upper House to expose the economic consequences that the Catalan quota will have on the rest of the autonomy.
The professor explained that the agreement between the PSC and the ERC envisages three objectives to pave the way for total fiscal sovereignty for Catalonia. Namely, full financial autonomy of the Catalan Government, its importance in the bilateral relationship with the Executive and a substantial increase in resources, reducing the interterritorial contribution.
To this end, the text envisages replacing the National Tax Administration Agency (AEAT) with the Catalan Tax Agency for the control of all taxes in Catalonia, as well as the creation of a Catalan contribution to state finances, but the exact amount of this tribute has not yet been specified.
Therefore, making an exact calculation of what it would cost the central administration to reach the Catalan quota is “impossible”, but the estimate made by Lago Peñas is an increase of 5.3 billion euros for the Catalan treasure. to the detriment of the rest of the communities autonomous. “The agreement would very substantially increase the resources of Catalonia and considerably reduce those of the rest of the autonomous communities,” said the professor.
The most direct consequence that this agreement will have is not strictly financial, affirms Lagos Peña, who explained that the State is currently in a “structural deficit”, so voluntarily giving up resources would be counterproductive, because this would seriously reduce “the capacity that the central administration must face asymmetric shocks” like those experienced by Spain over the last 15 years, “the great recession, the pandemic, the inflationary crisis and, now, Unfortunately, what happened in Valencia».
Another non-minor consequence that Lagos Peña draws is the loss of confidence in international markets in Spain. “If it loses the capacity to collect (the State) trust will be lost international markets which consider that payment commitments could not be respected. “It would be a cost that we would all bear,” the professor said.
Another subject matter expert invited to participate in these presentations is the State Treasury Inspector and President of the Association of Tax Inspectors. Public TreasuryAna de la Herrán Piñar, who assured that “the revision of the financing system, expected for more than ten years, does not imply the rupture of the current model”, referring to the reform of the Organic Law of Financing of the Autonomous Communities (LOFCA), which should be carried out for the creation of the Catalan quota, for which the Executive would require “complicated absolute majorities”, said Lagos Peña. “Our model works and if it works, what leads us to change it,” said Herrán Piñar.
The single box is “essential to guarantee the achievement of a series of essential objectives, such as the quality of service provided to taxpayers,” declared the president of the Association of Treasury Inspectors. Both comparators agreed that this measure would also mean “a step backwards also in terms of the fight against fraud”. Spain is currently above the average of other Eurozone countries in tax fraud and the way to remedy this is that “the system of control of economic activities must be of a global nature to guarantee this control,” said Herrán de Piñar.
