The keys to the PSOE-ERC agreement: from the economic agreement to the protection of Catalan | News from Catalonia

The President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, during a break in the meeting at the ERC headquarters that lasted more than nine hours.David Zorrakino (Europa Press)

Over the past six months, ERC has been living in a tsunami. The elections in Catalonia advanced after the country failed to get the necessary support to approve the budgets This year and now, despite being in a deep internal crisis, it has agreed with the PSC to invest president Salvador Illa has made the best progress in the fiscal autonomy of the Generalitat since he managed the first devolved taxes: the control of the collection of all taxes paid to Catalonia, which will become noticeable from 2026, when the Tax Agency will be in charge of the 2025 income tax campaign. The provisional agreement, which due to its militant nature has yet to be approved, also includes measures to secure state investment in Catalonia, promote negotiations on the current political conflict and promote measures to revive Catalan. If it goes ahead, Illa will be responsible for its implementation. These are the basic points of the agreement.

The economic solidarity concert. It was a big game that the ERC had proposed during the negotiations, and in any case, in the explanations that the Republicans gave this Monday, it seems that they have achieved the main thing they demanded. “The key to the box”, the Generalitat itself, is the one that collects all the taxes paid in Catalonia, in the image and likeness of the Basque Country and Navarre. The proposal means that the Generalitat leaves the common regime – it means a change to the Finance Law of the Autonomous Communities (Lofca) – and that it therefore has a bilateral relationship with the central government in terms of financing, despite the fact that the Minister of Finance, María José Montero rejected it during the last meeting of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council. The Generalitat will take over the collection of all state taxes and will pay the government the money for the services and investments it makes in the community, in addition to an extraordinary contribution in solidarity with the rest of the communities. This invoice is unknown and must be negotiated periodically. ERC assures that the agreement with the socialists also includes a guarantee that the principle of ordinality will prevail: that a community with less budgetary capacity can outperform after the redistribution of resources to richer ones.

The income tax, the first. Esquerra assured on Monday that it will have the capacity to collect, liquidate and inspect all taxes, although the acid test will take place from 2026. when the Catalonia Tax Agency will be responsible for the Income Tax Declaration (IRPF) campaign for 2025. At the moment the calendar has not yet been clarified, but after this first step it is expected that the rest of the state taxes will be adopted: VAT, Corporate taxes and special taxes.

The conflicted staff of the Catalan Treasury. ERC has guaranteed how material and personal assets should be transferred to take on the enormous new workload that it will have to take on to collect and inspect the new taxes. The employees of the State Tax Service are those who have experience in this matter and the immediacy of the process requires that experts be prepared from the first moment. However, the transfer of employees from the state structure to the Generalitat has always been conflicting recently emerged from the commitment to transfer the complete transfer of the Rodalies service from Renfe to the Generalitat.

Catalan, the key to the nation. Salvador Illa defended that as a basis the 'single financing' that the socialists planned to offer to the Generalitat It had to be supported by resources for its exclusive competences. One of these is Catalan, where its use is also in constant decline, as evidenced by the fact that only 25% of young people use it as a common language, compared to 49% of Spanish. The prior agreement that will determine the foundations of the ERC includes an important change regarding the structure of the Generalitat, which will have a Department of Language Policy. There are also closed points to protect the vehicle of Catalan in schools, threatened by court rulingsand to ensure that health services can also be provided in Catalan. Raquel Sans, ERC spokesperson, called Catalan on Monday “the key to the nation”.

A consortium for investments. Esquerra has refused to allow the tax consortium to share tax collection, but the agreement does provide for a shared body with the government to ensure that the government's investments in Catalonia are guaranteed. ENIn recent years, both nationalist parties and the business community have reiterated their criticism of the poor compliance with budgetary investments in Catalonia, which last year, according to the latest data from the General State Intervention, did not even reach 50% of the commitments.

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A party convention for the Catalan political conflict. It is the fourth basic agreement of the agreement between the PSOE and the ERC. It means creating a meeting point where most of the Catalan parties come together to make progress in resolving differences over sovereignty.

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