Agreement for the approval of the 2024 budgets
The Catalan government and the PSC have reached an agreement for the approval of the 2024 budgets, according to socialist sources.
The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, and the first secretary of the PSC and leader of the opposition, Salvador Illa, will sign the pact in a ceremony scheduled for this afternoon.
Intense negotiations and prior commitments
This agreement comes after weeks of intense negotiations, during which the socialists have pressured the ERC executive to renew its commitment to the expansion of Barcelona airport and to the approval of the urban plan that will allow the launch of the Hard Rock. These conditions already delayed the approval of last year’s budgets.
The socialists had established as a condition for negotiating the 2024 budgets that the Pere Aragonès government fulfill the commitments made last year. Although the conversations have progressed in parallel with the gestures that the PSC demanded from the Generalitat, it has been confirmed that the government has fulfilled these commitments.
Pressure on other parties
With this announcement, ERC and the PSC put pressure on the commons, who have opposed the Camp de Tarragona casino project and have expressed their willingness to reject this year’s accounts if it is not stopped definitively.
After the pact between ERC and the PSC, all the pressure now falls on the commons. The Catalan government is expected to meet with Catalunya En Comú this week to try to close a three-way agreement, but Jéssica Albiach’s side are willing to force the Catalan government to accept their conditions to give the green light to the budgets.
Details of the new budgets
Salvador Illa is expected to hold a press conference this morning to explain the details of the new budgets, which will likely include more items for housing, health, education and security, in response to the requests of the socialists.
