On striking a deal with 2 Catalan political parties, the Pedro Sánchez government conceded to their demands to have a special tax deal for the autonomous Catalan community; either taxes will rise or spending will be slashed in the rest of the country. That’s the result of a study by Funcas, the social and economic think tank.
Entirely contradictory to the writings of Marx, the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), or ‘Republican Left of Catalonia’, and the Partido Socialist de Cataluña (PSC), or ‘Socialist Party of Catalonia,’ agreed to sign a deal to support a second term in office PSOE (Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Workers Party) with a distinctly un-Socialist bargaining chip.
The Catalan parties wanted a change in the tax law, which would mean the region would much pay less into state coffers than they currently do. While the deal they asked for is similar to a deal the Basque Country already has, the impact this particular agreement will have is that the wealthier Catalonia will get wealthier, and the rest will become poorer.
Catalonia to contribute less tax revenue
The deal means that the Catalonian government would take charge of their tax system and only contribute to some joint ventures with the rest of the state. The rest of the autonomous regions would be affected because their public resources would be reduced. Above all, those that receive the most income from this fund, including Andalusia, the Canary Islands, Galicia, Castilla-La Mancha, Valencia, and Castilla y León. The richest territories that currently contribute more than they receive are Madrid, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands.
Professor Desiderio Romero of Funcas warns that if the quota agreement is finally signed off, which is likely, and if the rest of Spain is kept within the same tax regime, they will ‘have to cut expenses or increase taxes.’
‘Breaks common piggy bank & essence of EU’ – Juanma Moreno
The President of the Andalusian Government, Juanma Moreno, conveyed this to the Group of the European People’s Party (EPP), on the first day of his official trip to Brussels, and his concern that there may be singular financing for Catalonia that ‘breaks’ the essence of the European Union of equality and solidarity.
He stated that principles are being ‘endangered’ in Spain, both with the amnesty law, a process that leaves ‘serious crimes of political corruption unpunished’ and which ‘breaks the common piggy bank that the Spanish autonomous communities have’ meaning ‘privilege’ for a rich region, and to the detriment of other regions that do not have those resources.’
