Compromise will not support any pact on regional financing this does not include the Valencian Community, the most underfunded community in the country. During a press conference, Sumar's deputy and spokesperson for the Valencian coalition in the Congress of Deputies, Àgueda Micó, assured that any pact with Catalonia for a change in the model must include the communities most affected by the current system.
“The solution cannot be specific only to Catalonia. I want the PSOE to understand that there is a singularity and that if we want to tackle this issue, it will not be possible without the support of the entire plurinational group and compromises. For this reason, a solution cannot be provided for just one problem, but for all problems,” the spokesperson said at a press conference. Sources from that group say that if this happens, they will consider withdrawing their support from the government in light of the legislature.
Micó has accused the PSOE of playing with its formation, with Esquerra Republicana and with the parties that supported the investiture, since a debate like the one on regional financing cannot take place as a 'partisan debate'. About this problem The first discussions between the PSC and the ERC have reached a pivotal point for a possible investiture of Salvador Illa as the next President of the Generalitat of Catalonia.
Finance Minister María Jesús Montero opened the door to differentiated negotiations with Catalonia last week, but this weekend it was the president of the government himself, Pedro Sánchez, who raised the issue. “It is compatible to improve the regional financing system from the multilateral plan and at the same time formulate unique financing for an area as important as Catalonia,” he stated in an interview. The vanguard.
“What the government and the PSOE are doing is a lie. It has no potential,” Micó said on Tuesday, recalling that his party had already asked to address this issue in the context of the investiture debate and Montero replied that “this was not the time.” “Reform requires a parliamentary majority, which is not available at the moment if the specific situation of areas like Valencia and the rest of the underfunded communities is not taken into account. There can be no financing reform if the needs of the entire state are not taken into account,” the Compromise spokesperson emphasized.
Differences within Sumar
The issue of regional financing leads to discussion within the Sumar faction, with clearly different positions. While Compromís and Chunta Aragonesista refuse to support any financing that does not include their own territories, in the comuns they are more inclined to a single reform for Catalonia, although they also talk about expanding the debate to all communities.
“We defend a single system and this is absolutely compatible with addressing funding for all communities and having a shared model for the future. We've always said it. The model is based on respect for the principle of orderliness, co-responsibility for what we contribute and receive, and greater fiscal autonomy,” commons spokesperson Aina Vidal said at a press conference in Congress on Tuesday.
The CHA spokesman, Jorge Pueyo, went out at a press conference on Tuesday to ask that this debate also be addressed to Aragon, stating that he will not support any agreement that does not involve his autonomous community.
“If Catalonia has unique funding and Aragon does not, Chunta Aragonesista will not be able to provide parliamentary support. And it is not worth telling us that this is because the Statute has it, because the Statute of Aragon also has it. Therefore, any new reform of the financing system undertaken by the state government must take into account all the demands and needs of Aragon,” Pueyo said.
The parliamentary group discussed this debate during a meeting last Monday and agreed to the creation of a specific working committee. Several sources agree that this issue cannot be resolved within a few months, as it is only related to an investiture in Catalonia, and conclude that one of the solutions to reconcile the different interests is for the government to increase the financing for all communities increases.
Podemos criticizes that the PSOE is turning this debate into an “exchange of stickers”
Podemos, in turn, has criticized the fact that the financing debate in Catalonia has become an “exchange of stickers” around the inauguration of the new government. “The debate over the financing of Catalonia cannot be an exchange of stickers at an investiture; It must be an absolutely strategic debate for the country,” the party's secretary general said at a press conference at the Congress of Deputies.
“Approaching it as a trading card is a mistake. We must have a national debate on the financing of the autonomous communities,” he said, while also focusing on raising the “income floor.” Belarra has pointed out that both in Catalonia and the rest of the state, there is a “very serious problem of lack of income” because those who have the most do not contribute what they owe.
That's why he has advocated increasing the tax burden on high income earners and corporations to raise that income floor. “Apparently we have to start there and not start, as the PSOE usually does, with the house at the top,” Belarra warned.