Catalan chemists go on strike again for arrears

Barcelona (ACN).- On Thursday morning most of Catalonia’s chemists’ were closed and their owners and employees were demonstrating on the street. They were protesting because neither the Catalan nor the Spanish Government is paying them on time for the prescribed drugs, which they have to buy in advance with their own money. It is the second time since October 2012 that chemists have been protesting for the same reason. The situation improved slightly a few months ago, but delays in the Spanish Government’s transfers of money to Catalonia have made the Catalan Executive unable to pay on time and a significant debt has accumulated. Around 5,000 chemists protested this morning in front of the Spanish Government’s Delegation in Barcelona, asking Madrid to speed up the transfers of money. However, chemists were also protesting against the Catalan Government and its broken promises to put an end to the arrears this year. According to the chemists, they are owed €416 million, corresponding to the last 4 months. The President of the Council of Chemists’ Professional Associations of Catalonia, Jordi de Dalmases, explained that many pharmacy shops have serious difficulties paying in advance for such an amount of medicines. He said that some chemists have been obliged to shut down their businesses and that many could run out of stocks if the situation does not improve. This Thursday morning only 300 chemists were open throughout Catalonia, in order to cover possible emergencies. The strike lasted from 8 am to 2pm. In this period of time, only 21% of the normal activity was registered, processing 56,066 prescriptions from 23,558 people.

In normal circumstances, chemists buy all the drugs they will sell and, at the end of each month, the Catalan Government pays them back the subsidised price share corresponding to the medicines prescribed by the public healthcare system. However, the Catalan Government’s liquidity is totally controlled by the Spanish Executive, which is providing loans since it does not allow Catalonia to access the international financial markets. A delay in the arrival of such loans or cancelling one of those loans immediately puts the Catalan Government’s liquidity under significant stress.

The Spanish Government cancelled the transfer of a €1.7 billion loan

In fact, the Spanish Finance Minister, Cristóbal Montoro made it clear this week that it will be the ministry he chairs that pays the Catalan Government’s service providers directly, including the chemists. On the 15^th October, Montoro announced he was not transferring €1.7 billion to the Catalan Executive, a decision that made it impossible for Catalonia to honour all the scheduled payments until the end of the year. The Catalan Finance Minister, Andreu Mas-Colell, had already warned that payments to service providers would be affected. This week Mas-Colell said “I want to pay but I can’t, while the Spanish Government can pay and doesn’t want to”. Just yesterday evening, a few hours before the strike, the Spanish Finance Ministry stated that the money for the chemists would start to be transferred next week. However, these announcements were not enough to cancel the strike and avoid the protests in front of the Spanish Government’s Delegation.