The main problem that the ERC leadership faced this summer when it submitted the inauguration of Salvador Illa for consultation was the credibility of the agreement reached with the COPS. It was the last days of July, most were following the news since the placidity of the holidays and to all the possibility that the socialists had signed something like an economic agreement for Catalonia, as defended by ERC, seemed to be a mirage resulting from the heat. . The fact that Illa, the PSC and the central government remain silent while the Republicans tout the benefits of the agreement has made the situation even more incredible.
There are still members of Parliament who believe that their eyes will not see what is called “singular financing”. But that will not be the case because Salvador Illa did not emphasize again and again, in the barely eight weeks that he was president, his commitment to this promise until he made it one of the central points of his legislature.
“The financing in the terms we signed with you will be accepted,” Illa said before the ERC bench. “There will be a single financing for Catalonia”, proclaimed the president from the lectern of Parliament during the general policy debate which marks the orientation of the entire course.
The socialist president has also made it clear that he wants to have the support of ERC and Comuns throughout his mandate, starting with the budgets that he must begin negotiating in a few weeks. A scope in which Illa must also include Junts, because only this formation could save some of the pending tasks that its usual partners do not see favorably, such as the expansion of El Prat.
Maintaining the support of the ERC and not breaking ties with Junts is not only a necessity for Illa in Catalonia, but also a balance that the government of Pedro Sánchez must maintain in Madrid. ERC spokesperson Josep María Jové was clear when he put both eggs in one basket. “Without progress in fiscal sovereignty, there will be no budgets and, without budgets, legislatures will see little progress, here as in Madrid,” Jové warned. In her response, Illa promised that she would soon see “concretions.”
In this way, Illa connects his start of the legislature to a project, the financing reform and the Catalan singularization in the new model, which is currently uncertain and does not even have the support of government partners. And despite this, or perhaps precisely by taking advantage of this situation, Illa transformed the singular financing into a legislative project, comparable to what for the first tripartite of Pasqual Maragall was the reform of the Statute.
“We will give everything”
During the debate, Illa went even further than simply reaffirming the promise. “We will give everything. We are already working, with discretion,” he assured, suggesting that the collection of all taxes is not even a promise, but something that the Catalan Tax Agency is already preparing to do.
It is no secret that neither Illa nor any member of the PSC was in favor of anything resembling a “Basque-style” tax deal for Catalonia. The proposal was one of the last flags that Father Aragonès raised and that ERC then placed as a priority in the campaign, although similar music had also sounded a year earlier, in the investiture pact signed by Carles Puigdemont with Pedro Sánchez.
Illa, on the other hand, had made a proposal that is included in the Statute that passed the filters of the Constitution and that would involve forming a mixed consortium between the State and the Generalitat to collect all the taxes that leave Catalonia. However, it ended up adopting a proposal that eliminates the consortium and, therefore, the participation of the central administration, and leaves the Generalitat as the sole collector.
But, in addition, the agreement with ERC provides for the exit of Catalonia from the common financing regime, to enter a system in which it would have all the resources collected, with the exception of the solidarity quota agreed bilaterally. All of this requires, of course, first regulatory development, which must go through Congress, and then approval by the courts. A task that seems titanic but for which Illa is already calling for a new consensus. “[La financiación singular] It will be easier if we have broad support from this House, which I explicitly demand,” the President said.
