The Government and the Generalitat have agreed this Wednesday, in Madrid, the payment of 695 million of the State for the final settlement of outstanding debts for infrastructures and for the financing of the Mossos d’Esquadra.
The Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, and the Minister of Economy, Jaume Giró, took part in the meeting of the Joint Commission for Economic and Fiscal Affairs between the State and the Generalitatwhich had not been held since September 2018. At this Wednesday’s meeting, the two parties agreed on a timetable for paying, between 2023 and 2024, the 695 million outstanding payments of the agreements adopted at the time, with deliveries that the Treasury could not materialize due to the 2019 budget extensions and 2020.
At the meeting, Giró took the opportunity to raise the need for the Minister toa new ‘covid fund’ to meet the costs of the pandemic in 2022 and for which, according to the Generalitat’s calculations, Catalonia should receive around 1.6 billion euros. The Minister has also asked the Minister that the Treasury provide the necessary information to be able to prepare the regional fiscal balance, in compliance with law 10/2012 for the publication of this statistic. In addition, the Catalan leader has defended that Catalonia can maintain the waste tax.
The agreements of 2018
In September 2018, the Joint Commission agreed that the State Budgets from 2019 to 2022 would include items for a total amount of 759 million euros in compensation for the investment deficit in infrastructure in Catalonia in 2008. the 2017 Supreme Court ruling relative to the third additional provision of the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia.
According to the Treasury, per the 2019 and 2020 Budget extensions, it was not possible to incorporate the corresponding allocations to comply with this agreement until the approval of the General State Budget for 2021. To meet the outstanding 359 million euros, it was agreed yesterday that the State Budget of 2023 and 2024 incorporate the amounts of 200 and 159 million euros, respectively. According to the Ministry of Economy, these 359 million will go to the Generalitat’s mobility infrastructures.
Something similar has been raised with the amount due to regularize the funding of the Mossos d’Esquadra. In this case, the State has about 336 million left to deliver to the Generalitat, which, according to what has been agreed, will be settled in the 2023 Budgets. In addition, it has been agreed to create a working group to assess the compensation for the equating of the Mossos d’Esquadra with the rest of the security forces with regard to early retirement. The corresponding amount will be transferred in 2022.
The meeting also addressed the negotiations for the comprehensive transfer of the commuter service to Catalonia. According to the Department of the Economy, the Minister has called for “more agility” on the part of the State in concretizing this transfer, which, according to what was foreseen in the previous Budget Law, should have been produced before the end of 2021.