The Government reaches an agreement with ERC and ensures the approval of the Budgets

The General State Budgets will receive the next Thursday the approval of Congress of the Deputies. The coalition government has reached a pact with ERC to vote in favor of the public accounts for 2022. The ‘yes’ of the 13 Republican deputies, necessary to carry out the Budgets, comes after the understanding with the Executive regarding the protection of the co-official languages ​​(Catalan, Galician and Basque) in audiovisual production and their presence on streaming platforms, such as Netflix or HBO. The percentage of the content offered that must be guaranteed in those languages ​​is 6%.

By rushing the negotiation deadline (the first partial vote of the Accounts began at 11 in the morning), the Government of Pedro Sánchez has managed to attract ERC to ‘yes’, ensuring the processing of the Budgets. The favorable vote of the Catalan Republicans joins that of the PdeCat, EH Bildu, Más País, Compromís, Teruel Existe, Nueva Canarias and the Regionalist Party of Cantabria, which gives the Executive a solid base of 182 supporters of the 350 seats that make up the Congress. It would thus comfortably exceed the simple majority required (only more ‘yeses’ than ‘noes’ are needed).

The retirement of the ‘mossos’

Gabriel Rufián, spokesman in the lower house, announced the pact around two in the afternoon. “We give viability to Budgets in this House, but this has a way to go and we luckily have determined influence in the Senate [donde habrá que aprobarlos en las próximas semanas] and we will try that everything is fulfilled. The audiovisual law can be improved. It has cost us a lot for the PSOE to understand that there is a part of the audiovisual sector that must be protected. We have forced them. But there is time for this to improve even more, “he warned.

ERC has also agreed to an amendment to equate the terms from retirement from the Mossos d’Esquadra agents to those of the National Police and the Ertzaintza, from the age of 60, or 59 years if at least 35 years of effective activity and contribution to the body are proven.

The final confirmation of the endorsement of the PNV to the Accounts. So far, the jeltzales are agreeing to some amendments, such as the one that will mean that families with minors affected by serious illnesses can receive financial aid until they turn 23 years old, and not until they are 18 as they are now. The intention of the PNV is to continue negotiating, even until the approval in the Senate. The Budgets will come out this Thursday, when the vote in Congress is completed, towards the Upper House. If the senators there approve the same text without modifying it, the Accounts will be ready for publication and entry into force. If amendments are introduced, however, they will have to go back to Congress, which will have to vote on those changes.

Agreed tax benefits

The PDECat has defended its support for the Budgets for a legal change so that centers that are not 100% public (hospitals and entities that provide services to groups with difficulties) can access European Next Generation funds. “It de facto excluded many regions from the possibility of participating in these funds and we asked the Government to reverse this situation,” explained the spokesperson for the formation, Ferran Bel.

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Los postconvergentes has agreed on tax benefits for several issues: the reconstruction of the Historic Swimming Pool covered with jumps of the Club Natació Barcelona, ​​the celebration of the ‘200 anniversary of Passeig de Gràcia’, the ‘Mil·lenari de Montserrat 2025’ and the fourth edition of the ‘Barcelona Equestrian Challenge’.

In the chapter also on tax benefits, ERC has included Alimentaria 2022 and Hostelco 2022 and the Barcelona Music Lab program (the years 2022, 2023 and 2024).