The Generalitat boasts that it pays its suppliers in 13 days, but it has taken 14 years to get the Government to settle pending investment debts and another eleven on the financing of the Mossos. That Catalonia manages to enter 695 million more than a decade ago shows that the pragmatism of independence prevailing in the Palau de la Generalitat has normalized the institutional relationship but also that the bills that accumulated in the drawer had nothing to do with the independence process, but with the abandonment of functions on both sides of the table.
© Jordi Bedmar
Pere Aragonès Mobile World Congress
Without unity in the independence story, the confrontation is installed in the speeches while constant and resounding achievements are sought in the offices. The menu goes from “the impossible” to “the feasible” and the more arid and less mediatic the negotiation space, the better results. This is how the Government of Pedro Sánchez and that of the Generalitat are related between wars in the heart of Europe and implosions in the PP. The referendum and the amnesty are part of “the impossible” for the PSOE. The dialogue table meeting remains undated, although it was the Russian invasion that disrupted the calendar when the announcement was almost ready. The pressure on the call for the appointment falls on the Government and the advances on Pere Aragonès. The opposition of Junts and the CUP is a win-win although without practical effects.
In ERC they warn the Government that “it makes no sense to wait much longer” if you want to preserve the vote of confidence on the table but the script remains unchanged. First, the conference of regional presidents –next Sunday– and then… the Catalan folder. At the second date in La Palma, the charm will not go and Aragonès will be absent. “A lot has to change things.” That was the response at the Palau in the first call and the argument remains: neither the agenda nor the format – round of interventions without debate – would justify the presence of the president.
The bilateral commissions provided for in the Statute are those that are located in “the difficult” or “the feasible”. Although the pro-independence paradox leads the ERC to consider any achievement “insufficient” by system –compared to the “historic” announcements of the ministries– and Junts proceeds to get chest with each economic or infrastructure agreement on debts of the past and claims for the future.
The Generalitat pays its suppliers in 13 days, and it takes 14 years to collect outstanding debts from the central government
Gestures of deference are mixed with traditional blocking. The gesture: on Wednesday, the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, sat on the mixed State-Generalitat economic and fiscal affairs commission, although the official presidency corresponds to her Secretary of the Treasury. Montero and Minister Jaume Giró agreed on the final settlement of the debts of the Third Additional Provision of 2008 and the financing of the Mossos. And the blockade: there is no prospect of payment to the Treasury on the other five years of investment compensation committed in the Statute. Treasury has as its shield the ruling of the Constitutional Court of 2010 and another of the National High Court of 2015. The statutory provision is not binding for the State and the claimed debt “does not exist”.
What is feasible: get 60 million a year to finance the early retirement of the Mossos or agree on the cost of expanding the workforce agreed by the ministry and the Ministry of the Interior without the Treasury having taken the hint. The difficult part: the negotiations on the transfer of Rodalies, pending the response, next week, from the Ministry of Transport to the proposal forwarded by the Secretary General of the Vice Presidency, Ricard Font, on the transfer of material resources and personnel. And the reality: Aragonès and Giró – already complained to Montero on Wednesday – protested yesterday for the recentralization of the waste tax. Treasury promises compensation. But the Generalitat does not want the egg, it wants the jurisdiction. In Catalonia, 117 million are collected and allocated to the municipalities and the elections are just around the corner.
And if the spokeswoman for the central government, Isabel Rodríguez, dismisses the discrepancies in the Council of Ministers on the war in Ukraine with a “looking at our navel does not seem the most important”, what regarding the referendum? The important thing is the payment to suppliers…
IN PARALLEL
Unit in ‘stand-by’
The ball on the pro-independence roof
Since the independence parties and entities collided on February 7 over the implementation of a new General Staff, there have been no more contacts. Faced with the obvious division, Òmnium proposed “starting from scratch” with new interlocutors and different internal negotiation formats. And he led by example. The proposal was not well received by all, to the point that there were those who invited the entity to leave the meetings that had been held for nine months without progress. It was not necessary. They have not been reconvened. The ball is in the court of ERC and Junts, who continue to look at each other out of the corner of their eyes; while the CUP faces a process of renewal of its secretariat and the ANC tries to redefine itself. “We are on stand-by”, confess, resigned, the protagonists.
renewed image
Cocktails are back at the Palau… and sneakers
More than five years later, the Pati dels Tarongers once once more hosted an official cocktail reception on Tuesday. The Mobile World Congress deserved it and the Presidency worked to offer all the splendor of the Palau de la Generalitat to the more than two hundred guests with Pere Aragonès as host, Vice President Puigneró, Minister Alsina and Minister Torrent. The architecture of the Palau especially amazed the Asian guests and the success of the event became an addition and continues in the ERC strategy of supporting a new institutionality following the procés. The Government has tried to turn the MWC into a platform and even Puigneró became an advertisement man. The sneakers that he wore at the inaugural Mobile Lunch bore the slogan “Digital Catalonia”.
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