The Catalan Government does not give up on its goal with medical leaves. After Salvador Illa’s executive withdrew incentives to outpatient clinics to shorten them, as EL PAÍS reported, the Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau, stated on the program Aquí Catalunya, on SER Catalunya, that the Government is looking for mechanisms to “accelerate” the diagnostic tests that allow evaluating the duration of these leaves. In the interview, he admitted that the controversy over the incentives has caused “confusion” and proposes seeking a “path of consensus.”
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“The Government has always defended the same: medical discharges and leaves are always given based on medical criteria, and that has not changed nor will it change, but we have to find ways to accelerate diagnostic tests,” he expressed. Dalmau, who is temporarily assuming the functions of the head of the Department of Health after the domestic accident of Minister Olga Pané, said that they are already allocating more resources for this purpose, but the problem persists.
Starting tomorrow, Barcelona will host a high-level summit of progressive leaders organized by Pedro Sánchez, and the Minister of the Presidency welcomed that “lately everything happens in Catalonia,” an important news, he said, after the “disconnection” of the years of the procés. For Dalmau, it is also relevant that “all the progressives in the world” want to attend the Spanish president’s meeting, “the only or first European leader who has raised his voice against the policies of Trump and Netanyahu.”
In the interview, Dalmau also defended the PSC’s position in the crisis in Ripoll, where two of its councilors abstained and allowed Silvia Orriols to approve her accounts: “Something happened that should not have happened, and when someone ignores the instructions or does not follow them, or out of naivety makes a mistake, the party is firm.” The PSC showed them the exit door and they were removed from their position. “This is the leadership of President Illa, and today everyone knows in Catalonia that the project that can stop the far right, whether Aliança Catalana or Vox, is Salvador Illa’s project,” Dalmau pointed out.
Regarding other budgets, those of the Generalitat that the PSC is negotiating with Esquerra Republicana with the summer vacation deadline, Dalmau assured that the negotiation with the republicans has “many files,” without specifying which ones. According to him, there is “positive harmony” in the talks with the republicans, whom he “trusts in their given word” to have budgets before the end of the session period.
Regarding the collection of the IRPF by the Generalitat, agreed between socialists and republicans in exchange for Illa’s investiture, the number two of the Catalan government has asked Junqueras’ group for time and highlighted that issues blocked for 13 years, such as the autonomous financing model, have already been unblocked.
Asked about the imminent Fiscal and Financial Policy Council that the Ministry of Finance must convene, he acknowledged that the ministry will have to call them “soon,” but he does not know the date. When convened, the goal will be to approve the new financing system, and when asked if there could be news regarding tax collection, he answered that they “have to see if it is through that route or through legislative initiatives in the Congress of Deputies.”
One of these files on the table with Esquerra is the co-governance of El Prat Airport, about which he said that the government wants to “explore ways to participate in the governance” of the infrastructure through the Catalan Airport Authority. He added that they “hope to find the formula,” but they do not have it yet.
The Minister of the Presidency announced that they want to expand the offer of places to learn Catalan to “accompany” the regularization of migrants, although he did not specify how many additional places there would be, but he pointed out that about 25,000 have already been increased. Finally, he said that they do not consider in any way withdrawing the Creu de Sant Jordi from the writer Eduardo Mendoza for his recent comments about April 23 and called the campaign “nonsense.”
