The passing of the Catalan budget this Thursday by the Parliament of Catalonia is, perhaps, the first success of this government and, apart from that, proof that normality - obviously partial as long as there are still exiles and repression - is possible. Approving the public accounts for the following year before that year starts is the usual norm in countries around us. However, vicissitudes of various types - including the application of direct Spanish rule under Article 155 - had made Catalonia a territory in which the anomaly was the norm. This year, for the first time since the 2009 financial year, the budget has been passed early enough for it to enter into force on 1st January, something that was a commitment of the economy minister, Jaume Giró, who guaranteed this in Parliament when he introduced the bill and he has ended up delivering on his promise.
The happiness of the government has not been complete, because the obstructionist attitude of the CUP from the outset - more because of the drift of the government back to a Spanish autonomous community perspective, allergic to any confrontation with the state - brought matters to an enormously complex crossroads, given that the 52% pro-independence majority that led to the investiture of Aragonès was thus derailing, perhaps even irreparably. Thus, a decision had to be taken and none of the options were optimal: either forget about the passing of the budget and with it the extra 5 billion euros it incorporated, or pass it with the Comuns, open negotiations with the PSC as well, or even force a showdown with the CUP, heads or tails. With the first option discarded from the outset, ERC preferred the next choice (with the Comuns) and Junts the last (with the CUP). President Aragonès sided with the Comuns, not without friction within the coalition and the government. In the end, it was more a matter of aesthetics than anything else, because in a while no one will remember whose votes helped to get the budgets through and what will matter, in practice, is that a new budget exists and the investment capacity of the Generalitat government will have multiplied.
Of the five billion extra euros to be spent compared to the last budget, in 2019, it stands out that three out of every four euros of new resources will be destined to social policies aimed at people. Minister Giró also affirmed that the newly approved accounts will mobilize the necessary spending to reverse, once again, the disastrous effects of the ruling of the TSJC endorsed by the Supreme Court which imposes 25% of classes in Spanish on the schools. A few weeks ago it was Canet, and this Friday, Cubelles, in what will end up being, it seems, a permanent drip-feed of appeals presented against schools by a single family, destabilizing the language plans of the school centres.
Once the budgets have been passed, such important things remain as the arrival of the Covid funds, which the government is demanding while Pedro Sánchez continues to play to the gallery. The omicron variant will condition the months ahead and it is important that the Catalan government uses all parliamentary mechanisms to force the Spanish executive to create a line of assistance for the affected sectors. The Spanish prime minister evaded the matter at the latest conference of presidents, but it is obvious that there is room, if things are done right, for him to end up accepting it. But the big question has to do with the CUP and what role it wants to play in the legislature, which, as the saying goes, has just begun and yet the parliamentary majority is already failing.
The changes wanted by the far-left party clash with ERC's policies in Spain and the so-called dialogue table with the Sánchez government. Reaching an agreement that takes the situation back to how it was when Pere Aragonès was voted into office does not seem easy, but in Catalan politics, solutions to much more difficult problems have been seen. Therefore it will be necessary to wait. And to get beyond the verbal diarrhoea so typical of politicians separated by such profound differences.