There was a time when within the Popular Party, and not only the Catalan party, an improvement in the financing of Catalonia was proposed, identical to the Basque and Navarrese agreement. The newspaper library is a bucket of cold water for many almost inflammatory statements in recent days The popular leaders reported on the agreement between the socialists and Esquerra Republicana which allowed the investiture of Salvador Illa as president of the Generalitat. And that's not all: in the Catalan election programme of 2012, the flagship proposal was to “achieve a new single financing system”, with a “regulatory capacity” and to collect all taxes, although within the common regime. This proposal was very close to what is now agreed between the socialists and the ERC.
The historical commitment of the PP of Catalonia to improve the income of the Catalan coffers is determined by its close relationship with the Catalan business world, a group that has always considered that the community sees its possibilities of growth hampered by the lack of investment from the government. State. Already in 2005, Josep Piqué, then popular leader in Catalonia, raised the need to improve the system and recognize a certain unity, echoing the demands of the business world. A common struggle that led, in March of this year, to twenty employers' associations and institutions of different political sensitivities and that do not always manage to reach an agreement, to sign a document in favor of new financing for Catalonia.
The relationship between the party and part of the business world continues and this could partly explain the restraint of the Catalan popular in the face of the current controversy. During Illa's appearance last Thursday in Parliament, the leader of the popular bench, Alejandro Fernández, focused on the attack on “sanchism” and the relationship with Esquerra rather than repeating the argument of financing. Although he describes it as an “asymmetric confederation” that “does not respect the rules of the game”, he believes that the result will be different: “More resources will not arrive in Catalonia, more taxes will arrive in Catalonia, and if not, at the same time”, predicted Fernandez.
One of the points of greatest communion between the people and this demand for an improvement in the financing of the Generalitat occurred in 2012. At the dawn of the process The pro-independence Catalan PP tried to act as a barrier against the proposals of Artur Mas and Convergència, who, in September of the same month, presented their proposal for a “fiscal pact” to the then head of government, Mariano Rajoy. The proposal of this electoral repeat of those then led by Alicia Sánchez Camacho, now a deputy in the Assembly of Madrid, had as its center of gravity the realization of a “new single financing system for Catalonia.”
The electoral programme for that election shows that at the time the mention of “singularity” did not have the connotation of territorial claims that the PP favours today. The document, entitled “Catalonia yes, Spain too”, supports the need for differentiated treatment in order to “solve the systematic problem of the financial inadequacy of the Generalitat to cope with its powers”. “I will defend this model to the end. If my party does not accept it, I will consider the consequences. For us, improving the financing model of Catalonia is a priority”, said the then MP and candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat in an interview with Catalunya Ràdio.
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Those of Sánchez Camacho saw that it was possible to promote this uniqueness within the common regime – a big difference from the model agreed between the PSC and the ERC – through measures such as “the increase in transferred taxes and participation in the tax basket”. In addition to achieving the transfer of the “regulatory capacity”, the establishment of collaboration formulas between the respective tax agencies, continued in the electoral program, would allow “the management, collection, liquidation and control of all own, transferred and transferred taxes”.
The electoral programme of the Popular Catalans – with which they managed to obtain a share of the votes and an additional deputy – committed to the principle of ordinanality being respected in the new formula. It thus advocated guaranteeing “the maintenance of the Catalan position in relation to its own income per capita” once the mechanism of levelling interterritorial solidarity was applied. And even, in line with what Junts per Catalunya now defends, Sánchez Camacho wanted these contributions to other territories to be finalists. “We must guarantee that the funds that Catalonia sends to the communities are used to help them grow and not to grant subsidies or give money,” he added in the same interview with Catalan public radio.
But the newspaper's library is also particularly cruel to the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. In his act this Friday with the territorial barons, at the Palace of the Dukes of Pastrana in Madrid, the leader of the opposition in Congress made “ending independence quotas” a course priority, fruit of what he considers an “institutional disloyalty” on the part of the central government and the Generalitat. These statements are added to many others in which he makes it clear that there is no room for discussing a model of this type because it is “outside the legal system” and because he is sure that no regional president will be willing to renounce “what corresponds” in favor of a single autonomous community.
Núñez Feijóo, president of his party, seems to think very differently from the former leader of the Xunta de Galicia. In 2016, in a speech at the annual meeting of the Círculo de Economía, his position on a possible differentiated treatment for Catalonia was very different. In front of dozens of businessmen, he said: “I don’t know, except for a few autonomous communities, who don’t say that Madrid doesn’t give me what I’m owed. So, I’m not saying that the Catalan concert doesn’t meet the demand, because it’s true that Euskadi has it and Navarra has it. That’s absolutely true. It’s also true that during the constituent discussion, an agreement was reached that Catalonia would not hold a concert. Now, it’s true that these things can be changed and can be raised and discussed, right?
The current leader of the PP has in fact shown the complexity of a debate that, unlike his current position, has not closed itself off from the other nor seen it as something implacably outside the law: “What is measured and what is not?” is measured and what is weighted and what is not?”
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