The Catalan government has presented an appeal to the Supreme Court asking for the temporary suspension of the Spanish government's intervention in its finances. This was announced yesterday by Catalan vice-president and Economy minister, Oriol Junqueras, and again today by the Catalan executive.
Mariano Rajoy's Spanish Government agreed on Friday to assume control of Catalonia's essential spending —education, health, social services and payrolls, mainly— after the Catalan Government refused to continue submitting a weekly report on its expenses to the Spanish Treasury to prove it's not diverting public funds to the planned independence referendum.
The appeal includes a request to suspend the application of this agreement and, as such, the Catalan government believes that the Supreme Court will now have to resolve it before deliberating on the background to the appeal.
48 hours
On Saturday the agreement was published in the Official State Gazette (BOE), starting the 48-hour time limit given by the Spanish government for Catalan president Carles Puigdemont to adopt a non-availability agreement with respect to non-essential expenses.
Saturday's agreement specifies that, as well fundamental public services, other services like the justice system, prisons, roads, the rail network, public transport, logistics, security and other programs considered "priorities" fall outside of the budgetary block.
The Catalan executive has appealed the agreement to the Supreme Court alleging that the Spanish government is making "illegal" use of the law of Financial Stability to apply article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to Catalonia, the article giving broad powers to intervene in the governance of autonomous communities, "by the back door" as the Catalan Economy secretary, Pere Aragonès, said on Friday.
Coming out badly
As Junqueras and Aragonès have said on multiple occasions, Spanish Treasury minister Cristóbal Montoro's decision to intervene in Catalonia's finances will have pernicious effects on the Catalan economy and especially for a number of social services that won't be able to be properly looked after.
In fact, Junqueras warned again this morning that he "can't give guarantees about their irresponsibility" and that "if they continue in this vein, everyone could come off badly". He lamented that "they meddle in what we do well, the heights of budgetary legislation" and again called for the public to vote in the 1st October referendum. "Those who are doubting between yes or no to independence" because, he suggested, "now the question is one of democracy and basic social policies".