After finalizing the details throughout this Monday, the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, and Salvador Illa, first secretary of the PSC, will sign the budget agreement for 2024 at 4:00 p.m. this Tuesday at the Palau de la Generalitat. The leader of the opposition has already presented details of this alliance in Parliament this morning, which involves investments worth 4.6 billion out of a global Budget of 43,000, including non-financial spending. ERC and PSC have 66 seats and are two away from the absolute majority. Salvador Illa, leader of the PSC, has called on all forces, in clear reference to the commons, who demand that the Hard Rock megacasino project be archived so as not to present an amendment to the entirety. “Today an important step is taken to provide Catalonia with Budgets, but it is not enough. Out of respect for all formations, I call on everyone to live up to it,” Illa stressed.
This is the second time that the socialists support the Government’s accounts, which takes breath with the measure until the end of the legislature, which expires in February 2025. The Executive will hold an Extraordinary Council this Wednesday to approve the project. The agreement, conceived last week, sets out four priorities – teaching, housing, security and the fight against drought – and foresees, among other measures, allocating 7,435 million euros to education, adding some 4,000 homes to the social rental stock in 2024, more courts and anti-drought measures. The text of the agreement does not include any reference to the Hard Rock megacasino, which pits socialists, in favor of the project, against the commoners. The full debate takes place in two weeks.
If they want them not to present an amendment to the entirety, they already know what they have to do with Hard Rock,” warns Jéssica Albiach
Illa has justified this omission to “the economy of principles” while considering that the conditions established in the 2023 agreement have been met. “The administrative procedure will continue its course. I have not doubted Aragonès’s word and I have the guarantees that it will be like this and for me it is enough”, he stated, ensuring that they have given the Government “a goal pass”. “Let’s see if they finish,” he added. The socialist has insisted on his philosophy that “he does not change cards” and has refuted the feeling that this agreement also facilitates the approval of the General State Budgets. “We think of Catalonia. Not in Madrid, not in elections, not in Zurich, not in Copenhagen”, he replied, visibly angry.
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The Government and ERC, through vice president Laura Vilagrà and her spokesperson Marta Vilalta, have stressed that the project does not include “not one euro” for the Hard Rock. It was this argument that was used a year ago by the left-wing coalition, which then needed ERC to approve the Barcelona Budget, to give the green light to the accounts. Their position is that the project continues its administrative and environmental processing, without a specific item, while others reinforce the welfare state. Deputy Minister Sergi Sabrià has defended that the accounts mark “the final point” to the cuts by Artur Mas’ Government, he has said. “It is going to be very difficult for the common people to say no,” he stated.
A year ago, Aragonès first closed the budget agreement with the commons and then, after a tortuous negotiation, with the PSC. This time the order has changed. The final agreement, hammered out last week and culminated in a talk between both politicians in Mobile, comes just after the pact for Barcelona’s accounts. The commons are outside that alliance and have been indifferent to today’s pact. “We are where we were,” said Jéssica Albiach, leader of En Comú Podem, who recalled that her “indispensable condition” for negotiating is that the Government withdraws the Hard Rock Urban Master Plan. “The project is not an anecdote. “Hard Rock perpetuates the model of an outdated country based on speculation that brings us closer to Ayuso’s Madrid than to the Catalonia we want to be.”
After pointing out that they demand the sixth hour in education, investment in trains and 1,000 million in housing, Albiach has insisted that the Government already knows what it has to do to not push in the end an amendment to the entirety – that is, withdraw the project. and has indicated that the Hard Rock will mean more spending on little ones (because it is a foreseeable focus of mafias), in health (because of the risk of addictions) and increasing spending on drought (because it estimates that it will consume eight million liters a day). On the other hand, the PSC denies the greatest by maintaining that there is no drought in Tarragona because it is nourished by the water of the Ebro and not the internal basins and, therefore, it is free of restrictions. “In the last 25 years, the Ebro has lost 50% of its flow,” said Albiach, reproaching the PSC for being very concerned about security and, instead, supporting the macro casino. Disappointed with the pact, the CUP has proposed to the community members to build a containment dam against these macroprojects and demanded that the Government disseminate the Hard Rock’s environmental report.
With this landscape, Junts can play a key role. Favorable to Hard Rock, Junts has assured that the agreement has not caused any surprise because they have only held three meetings with the Government when a year ago they had fifteen. His proposal includes a hundred measures, among them the 99% bonus on the Inheritance Tax. For now, the Government has responded to part of their demands and, therefore, its final position is not yet known. “They are the ones who have the responsibility of reaching an agreement, but for us taxation is important,” said Mónica Sales, the spokesperson.
The right-wing bench has accused Illa of once again supporting the independence movement. Ciudadanos, which has accused the PSC of being “a cowardly party”, and Vox will present an amendment to the entire party. The PP will not support the accounts either. “It was obvious. Salvador Illa has long ceased to be an alternative to the separatist Government and has become a crutch, and with all due respect, the butler of ERC,” said the popular Alejandro Fernández in Mobile, reports Josep Catà . “The accounts are based on the increase in income in the greatest fiscal pressure in Spain and have an identity expenditure” to promote the independence movement.”
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