Carmen Calvo backs the Spanish Socialists' compliance with its commitments to investment in Catalonia. The woman who was Pedro Sánchez's second in command until July 2021 and currently, as an MP, chairs the Equality Commission in the Spanish Congress, says that the PSOE is doing well on this issue, but acknowledges that the problem did exist under the People's Party: "I'm really glad that you ask me this question, because the PSOE has changed it radically. Of the millions that Mariano Rajoy promised for Catalonia, he developed the AVE and did nothing. We did," she responded when RTVE journalist Gemma Nierga asked her about the execution of only 35.8% of the investments which the Spanish government budgeted for Catalonia in 2021.
Covid, reason for everything bad
However, since the actual figures under the Socialists do not match the argument she put, Calvo added: "We have the spending executed and the minister Raquel Sánchez, who is Catalan herself, has said so. We have just a slight delay, it's short, but also in the rest of Spain, due to Covid. Things might be executed more quickly or more slowly but it is there and it will be fulfilled". And in case this argument wasn't good enough, she insisted on the comparison with the PP. "I was able to confirm how in Catalonia, under the PP, neither was investment carried out nor were there plans for it. They limited themselves to two things: we deny Catalonia and we suffocate Catalonia. And Catalonia, in a very intelligent way, suffocated the PP."
A different rate to Madrid
"And now we that have been slowed down for two years does not mean that we are not investing," continued Calvo. The reference to the slow pace caused by the pandemic was interesting given the rapid rate at which investment has been carried out in Madrid, which saw the state invest 184% of what was planned in 2021, with 2.09 billion euros of state spending when only 1.23 billion was initially planned.
Meanwhile, in Catalonia, the two most flagrant cases of this lack of investment are those of Renfe and Adif, the state rail operator and the rail infrastructure company, which executed much less than they had planned. In the first of these, only 34.6% of the planned investment was executed - that is, only 90.6 million of the more than 262 million initially budgeted was spent. As for Adif, only 23.9% of the forecast investments were carried out, with 169.1 million executed out of the 707.4 million budgeted. In total, 739.8 million euros were allocated to Catalonia from the 2.07 billion euros planned in the Spanish government accounts, which made Catalonia, in percentage terms, the hardest-hit Spanish autonomous community by this failure to execute investment.
Dialogue and "agenda spaces"
As well, Calvo returned to the subject of the eternal suspension of the dialogue table between the Spanish and Catalan government, and seemed to drop a true news bombshell when she told the Spanish public television show that the next meeting between the two leaderships is imminent: "I understand that they are not having the best time but I know that they are looking for spaces in their agendas because PM Sánchez and president Aragonès can see each other's agendas. And they will do so [have a meeting] for a very simple reason, because our country cannot be understood without the weight that the population of Catalans represents."
She also praised the pro-independence ERC party: "It's good that they reached the presidency of the Generalitat because in the end they are a left-wing party." Reviewing the latest news, Calvo also justified the espionage against Catalan independence activists because it was "absolutely legal" and separated the Catalangate infection of phones with the Pegasus hacking on Sánchez and his minister Margarita Robles.