Just when you think you've been surprised as much as you ever can be by the treatment Catalonia receives from the Spanish state, it turns out you are terribly wrong. A quick look at the report on the actual execution of its planned budget by the state for the period 2015-2018, and you see to just what extent people can act in bad faith.
It is a scam in two phases: in the first, Catalonia is under-funded by the general State budget. It is a classic of each year by the respective ministers when they present the accounts for the Kingdom. There is nothing doing, budget after budget and minister after minister. Always between three and five points below what Catalonia is owed.
But the real scam, the one that doesn't get seen until much later, relates to the money that gets spent from the budget approved by the Parliament. The report is devastating and, fortunately, there are some measurable parameters, investments can still be quantified and the discussion about the state's economic attitude with respect to Catalonia can embarrass more than one individual.
Thus, for example, the average level of planned investments actually executed in all the autonomous communities is 75.3%. First question: What is the use of the budget? You see the magnitude of the tragedy when going territory by territory. Is Catalonia below the average? Yes, and very much so. By almost ten points! In a three-year period, 2.214 billion of the budgetary allocation for Catalonia never left Madrid.
And Madrid? Very much above the average. Shamefully above average. It's not that it has approached 100%, which would be quite the success, it's that it stands at 113.9%. This isn't an error in the report, not at all. It's that they have ended up giving Madrid money from other autonomous communities. And so Catalonia stands at 48 points less than Madrid. Throughout the day, however, the reactions in protest have only been from supporters of Catalan independence. As if pro-union Catalans had not been equally harmed. It must be a matter of politics.