Catalonia departs from the debate on regional financing

Everyone is waiting for Catalonia. In this ‘godotian’ wait, because Catalonia, as the character of Samuel Beckett is not going to appear, match, which ‘vladimires’ and ‘tarragon’, all communities. Those who want the Generalitat to be, again and as it has been From 1993, the ram that breaks the door and where to enter them, as those who need the ghost of Catalan insolidarity to ignite and unite yours.

The great animator of regional financing gives up. Last September 8th, In a meeting in Valencia, Pere Aragonès symbolically transferred the captaincy of the claiming team to Ximo Puig. The Valencian president, in private, had tried to convince him that the Generalitat played its cards. Aragonès, jokingly, replied that if he went to the media to say that I was doing him a disservice: “They’ll call you a pancatalanista in no time,” he said in the cordial tone in which the entire meeting was held. The other voice that has sought to add the Catalan side to the train has been, also unsuccessfully, the Balearic president, Francina Armengol.

More than expired

Catalonia is not going to lift a finger to address the reform of the system. The current one dates from 2009 and had to be revised in 2014. Seven years is a long time. And if the ‘procés’ is added, centuries of distance, at least mentally for the independence movement.

Despair is also for those who sign up for ‘against Catalonia you live better’. And for a sample button, that summit of autonomies of the PP and the PSOE that Alberto Núñez has summoned Feijóo before the danger, self-created, that the Generalitat starts a bilateral economic agreement with the Government of Pedro Sánchez.

No intention of opening melons

And the truth is that Aragonese He has no intention of opening the melon, nor even of participating in the negotiations for the division of pits. The Generalitat considers that the regional financing model is exhausted. A path that started Jordi Pujol with Felipe González, in 1993, so the PSOE lost the absolute majority, and that ended with the famous transfer of the 15% of personal income tax, among the complaints of a right that accused the socialist leader of selling Spain for one more term.

Of course then came the Pact of the Majestic, work of Pujol himself this time with the PP and José María Aznar and a young Mariano Rajoy on the negotiating team. A pact that brought the center-right to power and in which Aznar yielded much more than a simple basket of taxes in which 33% of personal income tax and 35% of VAT stood out.

The tax ‘basket’

Up to two new financing models would be required to finish stretching the gum and drawing the current basket of taxes. Namely: tax of inheritance and donations (used by some, graciously watered by the capital effect to do what Ximo Puig defines as fiscal ‘dumping’); tax on heritage (100% subsidized by the State in 2008, but extended annually since its temporary restoration in 2011); tax Asset transfers and documented legal acts ; 50% of the personal income tax, which constitutes the autonomous section of this tax: 50% value added tax (VAT); tax on hydrocarbons; 58% of the special tax on alcohol and tobacco; special tax on electricity; special tax on certain means of transport; tax on deposits to credit institutions (Here the State annulled a Catalan tax to install, by law, a tax rate of 0%); gambling taxes (includes online game).

“It is an exhausted model”, points out a source from Palau who denies any involvement of the Government in the debates that take place. “It would be much more effective, for example, that the Government maintain that extraordinary fund that was created to combat the covid [y que se dotó con 16.000 millones]”, of which Catalonia has received more than 3,100 million euros. And, basically, the gain from rolling up your sleeves and negotiating with the State an improvement is not so much if, in the case of remaining passive, thanks to the regime general rule that applies to everyone (Euskadi and Navarra apart), any new benefit would be immediately applicable to Catalonia.

“We are in another phase. Any regional pact is insufficient to meet the needs of the citizens of Catalonia. The financing problems that we have are only fixed with the tools of an independent State. There is no other option to avoid drowning and, therefore Therefore, the only negotiation on financing that we are going to open is that of the right to self-determination, “sanctions this voice in the corridors of the headquarters of the Generalitat.

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In this matter, the Ministry of Economy, in the hands of Junts, does not differ much – without serving as a precedent – from the ERC partners. And it is that in the matter of autonomic financing, the department that heads Jaume Giró resorts to the simile of the screen pass, that is, they no longer want to negotiate in an autonomous framework but looking towards the independence. Although they admit that “Catalonia has a serious under-financing problem Because of the current model, “they do not intend to lead or stir the debate, as on previous occasions. In essence, under-financing would mean that the Generalitat has to borrow or seek more resources to provide the same services as other territories.

And all this despite the fact that it is the third community in terms of fiscal capacity, but it happens to be the tenth community as regards the return. And, furthermore, “if the cost of living standards is taken into account, Catalonia becomes community number 14 with lower per capita income to finance the same services. “In these data, the Ministry of Economy justifies that Catalonia has” a slightly higher tax burden “, due to the need to attract more resources” to provide the same services as other territories. ” In fact, Catalonia is one of the communities with the highest personal income tax, especially in rents up to 30,000 euros.