A recent colloquium with the presence of the Economic Counselors from 2003 to today (Antoni Castells, Andreu Mas-Colell, Oriol Junqueras and Jaume Giró, with the exception of Pere Aragonès), and dedicated to addressing the financing of the Generalitat, led to a controversy over whether Jordi Pujol and his economic manager, Ramon Trias Fargas, rejected the offer that he made them in 1980 the Minister of Finance Jaime García Añoveros to have a financing model such as the Basque one. The accusation was launched a few years ago by the then Minister of Economy of the Basque Government, Pedro Luis Uriarte, in a work (‘The Basque Economic Agreement: a personal vision’, 2015) free digital access. In the colloquium, Pujol, who was in the audience, intervened to deny the major (which Castells had previously raised), downplaying what was explained by Uriarte. The response of the former Basque councilor on Twitter to the words of the former president was forceful: “Contrary to what was stated by Mr. Pujol, In the summer of 1980 he was offered in my presence a Concert to Catalonia, when we were negotiating ours, and he rejected it, for a series of reasons that I have explained in books that I have published. That’s the truth & rdquor ;.
The ‘former president’, who At 91 years old, he retains a good memory and reflexes, used as defense argument the fact that in the preparation of the first Statute (1979) only the representatives of the nationalist parties proposed a concert model when the future regional financing was addressed. Well, although that is true, we cannot forget that the concert’s claim It did not appear on the road map of Catalanism majority during the transition. First, because Catalonia had never had it before. Second, because in 1977 speaking of “historical rights & rdquor; it sounded “old fashioned”, a premodern idea. The Basque concert was born in 1878, as a consequence of the end of the Third Carlist War (1876), and its objective was for its inhabitants to contribute to the support of the liberal State, since until then, as a result of its medieval fueros (as a territory linked to Castile), they hardly participated. And, finally, because the concert proposal it married badly with the catalanism of the left (PSC and PSUC), which did not pursue a confederal but an autonomous model that culminated in a federal state.
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Uriarte recounts the three reasons that Trias explained to him for reject the offer of the Government of Adolfo Suárez, which was then preparing the autonomous financing law, including the provisions relating to the Basque Country and Navarre. First, collecting taxes would make self-government unpopular. Second, collecting directly was a risk at a time of deep economic crisis as it was suffered then. And, finally, the nationalist leaders believed that they would obtain better financing by negotiating with the state, taking into account that the UCD government depended on the votes of the CiU in Congress. Therefore, Pujol does not lie when he affirms that in the statutory debate his formation raised the concert, but it does not explain the whole truth. When unexpectedly it was his turn to govern in 1980, CiU preferred not to risk it.
We do not know if García Añoveros’ offer was really serious, but it is clear that if so, regional financing in general would have taken other directions. Because it is undeniable that the result of the Basque quota is a complete privilege: After the last agreement in 2018, the Basque Country transfers to the State only 1,300 million per year for common services, and its contribution to territorial solidarity is practically non-existent. Nobody in the aforementioned colloquium, organized by the newspaper ‘Ara’, offered any concrete key to improve financing, the review of which has been pending for years, which He visibly disappointed Pujol and many other attendees. But what no one said either is that this problem will be more difficult to solve as long as two rich territories such as the Basque Country and Navarra continue to barely contribute to solidarity between autonomies. From Catalonia, in addition to discussing what happened 40 years ago or crying for not having a concert, it should be required that the provincial quotas were not new privileges that we Catalans also pay.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com