Junts has attacked this Tuesday the budget agreement reached between ERC and the Salvador Illa Government and has accused the republicans of “putting their own interests first and leaving the country aside.” In the usual Tuesday press conference at the Parliament, the party spokesman, Salvador Vergés, argued that the pact “consolidates two years of mismanagement and subordination to the State and the PSOE” and presented ERC’s support as a progressive renunciation of the main conditions that the republicans had defended during the investiture. “We have gone from fiscal sovereignty to the orbital line,” he joked, referring to the evolution of Esquerra’s demands during the negotiation.
Vergés contrasted Esquerra’s initial conditions during the investiture —focused on unique financing and fiscal sovereignty— with the final content of the budget agreement, which mainly incorporates the promotion of the Orbital Railway Line, initially proposed in 2004. “In the investiture pact they talked about an economic agreement that ended up being a coffee for all, we moved to collecting 100% of the IRPF and we ended up with the orbital line,” he criticized.
The spokesman also recalled a comparison used a few months ago by Oriol Junqueras to defend ERC’s fiscal aspirations. “He said that if it could not be the collection of the IRPF, it had to be something higher. He gave the example of the refrigerator, where he said that if the store could not guarantee a refrigerator that had been bought, it should guarantee a new kitchen to compensate. Well, now we have neither refrigerator nor new kitchen,” he joked.
The post-convergents also criticized the Government for the ongoing labor conflicts, and consider that the agreement brings “stability to the government,” but “instability to the country.” “It translates into teachers and doctors on the streets, angry farmers and fishermen, also Rodalies users, those of us who want the language, rural agents or librarians,” he listed. “It is evident that Catalonia does not function under the Illa Government, and even less with this agreement,” he added.
In their press conference, Junts also harshly criticized the negotiation schedule and accused the Catalan Executive of deliberately delaying the agreement due to interests linked to the PSOE. “Since the withdrawal of the Budgets in March, two months have passed because they wanted to wait for the Andalusian elections to be held,” Vergés stated, interpreting this move as “another sign of the Government’s submission, with the complicity of ERC and Comuns, to the interests of the PSOE.”
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Along the same critical line, the PP leader, Alejandro Fernández, accused socialists and republicans of using the new structures planned in the agreement to “place their allies.” “The Illa and Junqueras Budgets are for-their-budgets,” he wrote, making a pun to criticize the creation of “consortia, mixed companies, observatories and commissions.”
Parlon’s Resignation
On the other hand, Junts has presented amendments to a CUP motion that calls for the dismissal and censure of the Interior Minister, Núria Parlon, and the general director of the Mossos, Josep Lluís Trapero, for the infiltration of two agents in a teachers’ assembly in Barcelona.
Specifically, Carles Puigdemont’s group also wants to request the resignation of the Education Minister, Esther Niubó, so they have proposed to the CUP to also include this point in their text. It will be voted in the chamber if the anti-capitalists accept, as it seems they will, Junts’ amendment.