The Catalan Parliament approves the 2012 budget with the abstention of the People’s Party

Barcelona (ACN).- On Wednesday, the Catalan Parliament approved the Catalan Government’s budget for 2012. The affirmative votes of the ruling Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition ‘Convergència i Unió’ (CiU), one vote from an independent MP, and the abstention of the Conservative People’s Party (PP) have given the green light to the budget. The vote came as no surprise after both parties had reached a definitive agreement on Tuesday. The PP’s leader in Catalonia, who is also the president of the PP parliamentary group, Alicía Sánchez-Camacho, justified the abstention “in order not to paralyse Catalonia”. The insistence of Sánchez-Camacho to have the PP’s contribution to the new budget recognised lead the President of the Catalan Government and leader of the CiU, Artur Mas, to praise the PP’s “responsibility”. The rest of the parties have voted against the budget and have intensely criticised the agreement between CiU and the PP. They consider the approved law to be “unfair” as it “lacks equity”. The annex law that details some of the measures included in the budget, which are always approved on the same day, will have to wait one month for its vote. Three minority parties have reached the minimum required to paralyse its approval and request the Council for Constitutional Guarantees (Consell de Garanties Estatutàries) to check it and state the law is in line with Catalonia’s main law.

The total amount of the Catalan Government’s budget, including funds for organisations from the public sector, represents €37.024 billion. The 2012 budget has reduced non-financial spending by 0.7% in total, compared to 2011. The Catalan Government stressed that this year’s budget allocates 70% of the money to social policies (healthcare, education and social affairs). The Catalan Ministries with a smaller reduction of their budget in percentage points are Welfare and Family, Justice, Education, Health, and Home Affairs.

CiU’s economic spokesperson, Emili Fernández Teixidor, stated during the Catalan Parliament’s plenary that the budget to be approved was “the budget to overcome the crisis, knock it down, and end with the crisis’ worst side, the deadweight of unemployment”. He also emphasised that the  approved budget is based on CiU’s electoral programme, and “on several points the PP and CiU coincide”.

The PP seeks recognition

The leader of the PP in Catalonia, Alícia Sánchez-Camacho, who yesterday announced the details of the CiU-PP agreement, asked the Catalan President for explicit recognition of their role approving the budget. “Tell the truth”, she said, “and admit the responsibility and loyalty” of the PP. Sánchez-Camacho stated: “that side of the Parliament’s bench represents the country’s past and this side the future”, pointing firstly where the rest of the opposition parties sit (the largest three of which ran the Catalan Government from 2003 until 2010 through a three-party coalition) and, secondly, pointing at the side where the PP and CiU sit. She also insisted that the agreement between CiU and the PP “goes beyond the budget” and if the Government’s road map is focused on recovering from the economic slowdown, the PP will stand by the Government.

The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, avoided giving too much recognition to the PP and vindicated his paternity of some of the measures and points included in the agreement, such as the tourist tax and the delay to implement it. However, Artur Mas recognised the PP’s “responsibility” in approving the budget. Mas said that citizens have “awarded” the parties playing “the responsibility role”. “I admit the job we are doing might not be liked by everyone, but there are people that understand” the need for it, he said.

A tense plenary, formalising the distance between the Left-Wing opposition parties and CiU

The parliamentary debate on the Catalan Budget has caused much tension. The Left-Wing opposition parties have intensely criticised CiU’s agreement with the PP, and CiU has accused the opposition of being demagogical, not offering viable solutions, and not representing the majority of Catalan citizens.

The main opposition party, the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), asked Mas “to tell the truth” and “to recognise his sins”, “to recognise he has a stable and solid agreement” with the PP for his entire term in office. The Economic Spokesperson for the PSC in the Catalan Parliament, Rocío Martínez-Sampere, defended voting against the budget because “it is not fair, it is not equitable, and not efficient”. According to the PSC, the budget “dismantles public services in Catalonia”. “The most nationalist CiU in history has reached an agreement with the most centralist PP in history”, she added, insisting that they have formed a “Centre-Right” coalition.

The Spokesperson for the Catalan Green Socialist and Former Communist Coalition (ICV-EUiA), Joan Boada, was even more critical. Boada accused the Government of being “obsessed with budget cuts”. He said the Government has only managed to reduce the deficit by 0.5% and has caused “pain” to citizens. “You have turned into bloodsuckers, sucking the blood out of the Welfare State until it is too thin”, he said.

The Spokesperson for the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC), Sergi de los Ríos, wondered how the Catalan Government and CiU could reach an agreement with the PP and put aside the claim for a better fiscal agreement between Catalonia and Spain. De los Ríos thinks the budget “prolongs Catalonia’s agony”.

The two minority parties forming the mixed group and representing opposite ideas coincided for once by criticising the budget. The leader of the Spanish Nationalist and Populist ‘Ciutadans’, Albert Rivera, stated that the Catalan Government wanted to reduce the deficit by “stepping on citizens’ rights”. Besides, the Spokesperson of the Catalan Independence and Populist ‘Solidaritat per la Independència’, Uriel Bertran, stated that “Catalonia is a nation” but that with this agreement “it turns into a region asphyxiated by the Spanish State”, since the budget “perpetuates Catalonia’s fiscal deficit”.