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There is no explanation to justify the fact that the Parliament of Catalonia has been squandering, I cannot find a more accurate word, 1.7 million euros per year since 2008 to pay salaries to about twenty officials - specifically, 21 - who, by means of a peculiar system known as "age leave", were able to retire at the age of 60 if they had been employees of the legislative chamber for fifteen years, and then to receive between 4,000 and 10,000 euros a month. There is no explanation why this agreement was approved unanimously in 2008, the second term of Catalonia's left-wing tripartite government (2006-2010), and in a Bureau of Parliament in which there were representatives of the Republican Left (ERC), which held the speaker's position with Ernest Benach, two members of the Catalan Socialists (PSC), two from centre-right Catalan party Convergència i Unió, one from alternative left party Iniciativa per Catalunya and one from the Popular Party.

There is no explanation for why the Bureau of Parliament and the works council reached an accord that, in addition, would have been included in the employment agreement governing conditions for the officials of the Catalan chamber. There is no explanation for why, over 14 years and four speakers in Parliament - it is now, under Laura Borràs, the fifth, that it has come to light - nothing was known of this and all the parliamentary groups that had a place on the Bureau permitted this privilege, and in the meantime, there have been two deep economic crises, the 2008 financial crisis caused by the US housing bubble, whose harshest period went on until 2011, and the one caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. There is no explanation for the fact that, in the midst of crisis, it was possible to hide certain privileges that put between 56,000 and 140,000 euros per year into the pockets of the beneficiaries.

There is no explanation at all for ex-speaker Benach's words that when it was approved by the Bureau at the time, the economic situation was different. There has never been a time when public opinion, if it had known of this, would have justified such utter baloney and when unjustifiable privileges would have been seen by public opinion as absolutely normal. There is no explanation for the damage to the Catalan Parliament's institutional image, to which the house will be subjected, which will be persistent over time and difficult to amend, and all this while the health system's primary care centres are overwhelmed with work, medical staff are unable to cover the current demand, while teachers, to quote another group, have to face an obvious structural deficit in conditions that are not easy.

There is no explanation for politicians and officials weaving an impenetrable web in which nothing happened if the vacancies could not be filled until the officials who had benefited from the age leave scheme retired because, if personnel were lacking, they simply employed more staff and everything was fine. There is no explanation to the public from those who approved this and from all those who have been benefiting from it and who, at no point in these years, it seems, were struck by the thought that, perhaps they should go back to work to continue collecting this money, especially the two general secretaries who, it seems, made the most of the scheme.

And there is no explanation, from an ethical point of view, why this situation cannot be reversed - which we trust is at least absolutely legal - immediately and a formula found within the law so that this political nonsense can be corrected, and the officials who today are making the most of the privilege return to work - or lose their perks.