Together for Catalonia (Junts) remains "willing" to negotiate the Catalan budget "until the last minute". That was the revised message given by the Catalan pro-independence party's executive this Monday, hours after registering their intention - along with five other parties - to entirely reject the draft budget of the Republican Left (ERC) government. This Monday morning at 10:30am saw the passing of the deadline for the required declaration of intentions to vote against the budget's entry into Parliament, and party spokesperson Josep Rius and his counterpart from the parliamentary group, Mònica Sales, explained that their decision to vote against the budget is "preventive" and that they are prepared to withdraw it if the government accepts the effective elimination of the inheritance tax. "We do not close the door to negotiations if our conditions are accepted, we reiterate our desire to continue negotiating the budget until the last minute," said Rius.
At the same time, Sales explained that the leader of the Junts MPs, Albert Batet, contacted the Catalan president, Pere Aragonès, this Monday morning to convey to him that they are open to meeting again: "There is still room to negotiate, but the ball is in the government's court." However, from Junts they were very critical of the executive for the way the accounts were negotiated with them and because the project did not satisfy them: "We declared our intention to make a full rejection of the budget for three reasons. Firstly, the budget does not represent the Junts model for the country. Secondly, the government did not want a negotiation, but an accession. And, finally, because these accounts would only serve to perpetuate the mismanagement by the Republican Left", added Mònica Sales. The parliamentary spokesperson also reproached Aragonès's government for having held only four meetings with them, with one of these encounters not even lasting 20 minutes.
Six parties rejecting the budget
The arrival of this morning's deadline for signalling party intentions to reject the budget showed that the options for Pere Aragonès's government to find enough voted to pass the accounts are becoming limited. After Vox, the CUP, the Comuns, Ciudadanos and the PP all proclaimed their 'no' to the parliamentary reading of the draft budget, Junts joined them. In fact, the pro-independence party has already signalled their intention on Tuesday. This followed a meeting last Thursday, the fourth between the executive and Junts to negotiate the budget, which showed up the distance between the former government coalition partners. The key area of disagreement for Junts was taxation and, more specifically, the elimination of the inheritance tax, an aspect in which the ERC executive refused to give in. Sources from Junts pointed out that, for them, it was "very important" for the government to make "some move" on their proposal to discount this tax by 99%.
Talks with Comuns ongoing
With the 31 votes of the group led by Albert Batet looking very complex, the ERC administration has also been working to get the left-wing En Comú Podem to withdraw their budget rejection on or before the plenary session in two days time. Thus the session of this Wednesday, March 13th, will be the litmus test for the budget: if they are approved in the initial debate, their parliamentary processing will continue and they could be passed definitively in the sessions from April 9th to 11th. However, if the current rejections by six parties stand, the budget project will fall. In this regard, talks and negotiations between the executive and the Comuns have intensified over the last few days.
The alternative left group led by Jéssica Albiach makes it a condition that the major Hard Rock resort project be stopped. For its part, the government responds that, if it agreed to this, it might be at risk of paying compensation and, at the same time, it argues that it cannot stop an administrative procedure. Last Wednesday, during the government's question session, the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, stated that if his executive stopped the project, it would lose the support of the Catalan Socialists (PSC) for the budget and, therefore, this route would not get them passed either.