The mayor of Valencia, one of the largest municipalities in Spain in the hands of the Popular Party, Maria José Catalámade it clear that the rejection of singular concert proposed by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, for Catalonia It also provokes widespread rejection in town halls. “The Catalan quota is also an attempt at municipalism“, came to say the mayor of Valencia.
Catalan, in factcalled on municipal councils across Spain to jointly appeal if the measure ultimately succeeds. before the Constitutional Court and even before the European Council, which considers that this will be a new blow for the financing of municipalities.
“The local financing system is perverse and here too we have to fight for the crumbs”, declared the mayor during a breakfast in Madrid organized by New Economy Forum. According to Catalá, if this joins the agreement with ERC only the part of the State collection that Catalonia will assume only with personal income tax, of approximately 23 billion euros, “we calculate that this will mean a 10% loss of income for municipalities“.
municipal common front
This is why he plans to promote before the Constitutional Court a “conflict in defense of local autonomy to challenge the Catalan quota if it materializes”, with the aim of defending the financing of the municipalities. “We all have to go“, he assured, given that this conflict must be promoted by local administrations with minimum population requirements. In this sense, he commented that He has already spoken with the mayor of Madrid also from the PP, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, and who is convinced that many Spanish cities will join him.
In addition to the Constitutional Court, the mayor of Valencia proposes to bring this conflict before the Council of Europe to investigate the government for violation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, which “requires that companies be consulted in good time on any action that may affect them, especially if it affects resources.
“Because the Catalan quota affects us a lot, it directly attacks the constitutional principle of financial sufficiency of town halls and it will not be something circumstantial. It will reduce economic capacity in the future, and town halls must defend the bread of today, but also the bread of tomorrow,” he underlined.
Funding reform
Catalá recalled that the Valencian Community has been demanding for years a reform of regional financing since it is one of the most affected and requested that the financing of the municipality be addressed at the same time, in which he considers that there is unity between mayors. of the major parties and cited the former president of the FEMP, the mayor of Vigo and the socialist Abel Caballero.
For this reason, he demanded as a first measure a reform of the local treasury law so that “local financing is calculated on gross revenue from state collection“. “That we are not obliged to engage in fierce and perverse competition for funding. This country has always worked and has always functioned with a model of coexistence and solidarity,” he stressed.
