Double grievance with the quota for Catalonia

The fiscal pact doesn't quite convince ERC, but it has stirred up the rest of the autonomous regions.

The agreement reached yesterday by the Catalan government and the Generalitat (Generalitat) to lay the groundwork for the special financing demanded by the separatist ERC constitutes a double affront to the rest of the autonomous communities. First, it ends the current financing model for the common regime regions by negotiating only with one of the affected regions and outside the territorial forum where its reform should be debated: the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council.

The second is to burden the regional governments sidelined in this process—all except the Catalan one—with the cost of granting more resources to the Generalitat (Catalan government) headed by Salvador Illa, since the application of the principle of ordinality, by which Catalonia must occupy the same position when receiving funds from the State as when contributing them, will necessarily reduce its contributions to solidarity funds between communities. These are the mechanisms provided in the current financing system to balance the less prosperous regions with the most dynamic ones in terms of the resources available for their public services.

With this reform, agreed upon by the PSOE, PSC, and ERC, three parties that claim to be left-wing, the principle of territorial solidarity established in the 1978 Constitution is shattered. Therefore, Pedro Sánchez's government is once again exceeding the scope of the Magna Carta to satisfy the demands of its separatist partners, as it did with the Amnesty Law for the fugitive Carles Puigdemont.

To add insult to injury, the bilateral agreement between the Moncloa government and the Catalan government contemplates introducing mechanisms to limit the ability of the other autonomous communities to reduce the taxes ceded to their taxpayers, another demand by the separatists to put an end to what they consider fiscal dumping, primarily by the Community of Madrid. The absurdity of granting greater fiscal independence to Catalonia while restricting the tax autonomy of the other regions provoked widespread indignation among its leaders, who will fight in court to prevent what Díaz Ayuso called a "robbery of the nation" and García-Page denounced as "blackmail" by the separatists against Sánchez.

However, this broad fiscal pact hasn't entirely convinced the ERC (Republican Left), which is demanding greater specificity regarding how and when all taxes will be transferred to Catalonia's own treasury. With the Catalan quota, Sánchez has opened a Pandora's box.