Government celebrates Spain forgiving over €17bn debt as 'recognition' after years of underfunding

The Catalan finance minister, Alícia Romero, defended the decision of the Spanish government to forgive over €17 billion of debt. The national executive will write off more than €83 billion in debt to all Spanish regions.

For Romero, this move is "recognition" of all the efforts Spanish territories have had to make after years of underfunding. With this move, the Catalan government will be able to save around €1.55 billion, which will allow it to "reduce by 20% the current debt and, therefore, be able to go to public markets and look for alternative ways of funding," Romero told journalists in Madrid before the meeting.

Meanwhile, the finance ministers of governments led by the People's Party stepped out of the meeting a few minutes after it started. They considered the gathering at the finance ministry "a joke."

"We are now facing agreements that were agreed on by several parties in different places and that are just brought here to be ratified," Miguel Corbos, Galician finance minister, told journalists in reference to the deal reached between the Socialists and pro-independence Esquerra Republicana, announced earlier this week by ERC's president Oriol Junqueras.

Madrid regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso had already written on X, formerly Twitter, that she considered the meeting a "way of splitting the debt of some regions among all Spaniards, just to pay the Catalan elections. "

After the meeting, Spain's finance minister María Jesús Montero criticized the move by the People's Party and urged their leaders to justify why they were not in favor of canceling the debt of all Spaniards.

She told them that they are "disloyal and cowards." "They decided to step out of the meeting before voting against something that they have been asking for," she added.