The Catalan government budget has overcome the hurdle of its first parliamentary vote thanks to the Comuns, who withdrew their intention to reject the budget and thus, for the second time - the previous one was in 2020 - have occupied the preferential role that was reserved for the CUP. The latter have done just what they did last year, first facilitating the investiture of the president of the Generalitat - then Quim Torra, now Pere Aragonès - and, some time later, overturning their government accounts. They had also tried it before, in 2016, with Carles Puigdemont, who came back to them with the referendum proposal and deactivated the anti-capitalists.
With great haste and a change of script, the budget has passed the first part of a long parliamentary process, with the target date of coming into force on January 1st of the year to which it applies, something that has not happened since 2010, that is, 11 years ago. The entry into play of the Comuns has weakened the governing coalition and endangered something that is sometimes forgotten: that the rivalry between the parties that make it up, ERC and Junts, is not only political but also quite visceral.
So much so that, once again, the disagreements between ERC and Junts have provoked a new crisis over the weekend. Pere Aragonès forced the issue against an organization which is still under construction and got what he wanted. This is one of the aspects of presidential power: you play with a distinct advantage. For ERC, it has never been a problem to pass the budget with the Comuns, as they state in their political proposal aimed at broadening support. Nor for the Comuns to endorse a budget put together by a minister from Junts, Jaume Giró. The problem was, in any event, for a sector of Junts that wanted the party of Ada Colau and Jéssica Albiach out of the equation at all costs. Something that everyone knew would not happen if the CUP withdrew its support since the option for Junts itself to leave the government was even less popular in the party.
The budget is not going to change substantially no matter how much each party now needs a conjuring trick. In fact, the change is more in politics than in finances and in the swap of trading cards between president Pere Aragonès and mayor Ada Colau, which will also save the Barcelona city council's budget. If there were any doubt, the president of the council group for ERC, Ernest Maragall, offered the required explanations for the sudden change of direction with respect to what he himself stated last week.
In the midst of this new tension between partners, ERC and Junts run the risk of getting used to living in permanent disagreement and projecting the contention between the parties onto the government. This was about to happen in the budget and only the dexterity of minister Giró allowed the preservation of the loyalty that must exist between the president and his ministers when the music that Junts has collectively played has not always been in the same key. It also remains to be seen how the positioning within president Puigdemont's party has been left after a weekend of so much internal tension.