privatising

The Catalan Parliament approved on Thursday the Law on Transparency, Information Access and Good Governance with 81% in support and 2% in opposition. This bill comes a few months after the Catalan Government was graded 100 points out of 100 by Transparency International Spain for the information it makes available to citizens through its website about public contracts, tenders, subsidies and elected officials. However, these measures also come after years of corruption scandals, which have not only occurred across Spain, but also in Catalonia. The main parties have backed the new law, while two other parties abstained and one voted against the bill because they said they did not trust the governing centre-right pro-Catalan State coalition CiU. With the new law, access to information will become a citizen’s right, which can only be limited when it affects people’s intimacy or a few other exceptions, including public security. 

Joan Herrera, the leader of the Catalan Green Socialist and post-Communist coalition ICV-EUiA, also held his own conference on Catalonia's political future and self-determination road map, after those of the Catalan President, the Spanish Prime Minister and three other political leaders. Despite supporting Catalans' right to vote on independence, Herrera rejected exclusively voting on independence, since after years of budget cuts and corruption scandals, citizens also have to vote on social issues and measures to clean up the democratic system. Herrera strongly criticised the austerity measures approved by the centre-right pro-Catalan State coalition CiU and the People's Party (PP). The ICV-EUiA does not have an official position regarding independence and about half of its leadership and voters would support it, while the other half supports greater powers for the Catalan Government within a federal Spain.

In early November, the Catalan Government decided to allocate the public tender privatising the service of the publicly-owned Aigües Ter-Llobregat – which supplies water to the 5 million people of Greater Barcelona – to a joint venture led by Acciona. This meant that the Catalan Executive cashed in €300 million in 2012 and €700 million was to be split over the next 50 years. The operation was aiming to reduce public deficit. However, Agbar appealed the tender because it thought that Acciona was not fully respecting the terms of reference. Now the Court have backed Agbar’s view and cancelled the tender. Acciona has already announced that it will appeal to the Spanish Supreme Court and, in the case that it loses the concession, it will sue the Catalan Government for damages, since the contract came in to effect on the 1st of January.

On the 5th of December, the Catalan Executive allocated the tender to privatise the public companies Tabasa and Túnels del Cadí to the joint venture formed by Invicat (owned by Abertis) and the investment bank BTG Pactual. On Friday, the deal was completed and the Catalan Government earned €309.6 million, representing 72% of the total of the €430 million operation. In addition, the two public companies will effectively disappear. The concession will last for the next 25 years and the Catalan Government will continue to own the infrastructures but it will transfer the management and exploitation. The operation includes the tolls at the Vallvidrera highway tunnels accessing Barcelona and the Cadí tunnel, at Cerdanya County, in the Pyrenees.

The Spanish Government decided that five members will be appointed by Catalan administrations and the business community, and four others will be nominated by the Spanish Airport Authority (AENA). However, decisions will be taken with a two third majority. It will decide on airport taxes, routes and other strategic aspects. 29.5 million passengers passed through Barcelona El Prat Airport in the first ten months of 2011, a figure already higher than that registered for all of 2010.