Pedro Sanchez He inaugurated the 2024-25 political year this Wednesday in front of senior officials from his Council of Ministers and the country’s main unions. He did so by committing to improving the resources of “each of the autonomies” in order to silence criticism of the single Catalan financing agreed with the ERC.
At almost the same time, the first vice-president, Maria Jesus Monteroappeared in the Senate to explain the agreement with ERC. Montero defined the Catalan concert as “a new look at financing.”
The analysis of the two speeches leads to interesting conclusions.
Sánchez promised “a fair financing system” that reduces “territorial differences” and demands “co-responsibility” of the autonomies.
Then he promised that all communities would receive “more money” than they had received with Mariano Rajoyand announced that it would double the amounts of the Interterritorial Compensation Fund. A Fund which today amounts to barely 430 million euros.
The PP responded to the president’s promises with a practically united message. “It’s a lie,” he said. Azcon. “It’s another smokescreen,” he said. Mazon.
María Jesús Montero said in the Senate that “lowering taxes and then asking the government for more money because it doesn’t get it with the collection, what do you call that? In any administration, that’s fiscal populism and institutional disloyalty.”
From the juxtaposition of the two speeches, it is deduced that the supposed increase in income of the autonomous communities will be financed by the increase in taxes “on the rich” announced by Sánchez, and that the communities will see their financing guaranteed as long as they maintain a tax pressure that the Government considers “not unfair.”
Although Montero did not allude to it, it seems clear that Catalonia would be exempt from this “loyalty”, regardless of its level of tax pressure. Montero said that the new system would maintain “exactly” the current solidarity between territories while “deepenning federalism”, without explaining how.
If we pay attention to the criteria put forward by Sánchez and Montero, this demand for “co-responsibility” will punish the communities that have chosen to reduce taxes. This is because of what Sánchez defined as the “outdated neoliberal model.”
Sánchez, in fact, alluded to what these “sinful” communities are: Andalusia, the Valencian Community and the Community of Madrid. Ayuso responded by accusing the president of “planning a robbery against Madrid.”
But beyond the rhetorical juggling lies the reality. And the reality is that the president has not given details on how this doubling of the income of the autonomous communities will be achieved in concrete terms. Nor on how he intends to maintain the current system of solidarity between communities after granting a concert to Catalonia.
Sánchez and Montero, in short, played hide and seek with what is relevant, the Catalan concert, while moving the cups in front of the Spaniards and challenging them to find the ball of the lack of neoliberal solidarity of the PP communities.
Neither Sánchez nor Montero denied today that the Catalan budget agreement is a model ad hoc for the community chaired by Salvador Illanot reproducible by other autonomies and which will lead in practice to its exit from the common regime.
But they played with appearances, they played tricks with the nomenclature and they resorted, once again, to totum revolutumBy promising to double the funding of the autonomies, they sought to introduce discord between the PP barons, while avoiding giving explanations about their pact with the ERC.
Junts responded to this lack of precision by stating that the concert is not debatable. “Either concert, or concert,” the senator said. Eduardo Pujolwho then called the ERC-PSOE deal a “fiscal calimocho”. “Fiscal calimocho is sweeter and more fun, but it is just as unbeneficial as coffee for everyone.”
Junts and ERC will not accept, in short, anything other than a fiscal agreement similar to that of the Basque Country and the exit of Catalonia from the common regime, nor any formula that grants the rest of the autonomies the same thing that Catalonia receives.
This is the squaring of the circle that Sánchez attempted in his appearance and that Montero defined in his with a tautology whose only objective was to get out of the disorder with the greatest possible dignity: “You can call it whatever you want, I never blamed you for it, but I mean it literally. It’s neither, it’s a new perspective, and new perspectives are hard for other people to see.”.
The Spanish already know that Catalan funding will be “neither one nor the other.” The only thing they lack now is knowing what it will be about..
