The president of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), Oriol Junqueras, confirmed this Thursday that he has reached an agreement with Pedro Sánchez's government on a new regional financing model that will bring around 4.7 billion euros more to Catalonia. Junqueras described the pact as "a good model in which no one loses and everyone wins" after the meeting held at the Moncloa Palace.
According to the pro-independence leader, the agreement incorporates the principle of ordinality, so that Catalonia, being one of the regions that contributes the most to the system, is also among those that receive the most resources. However, key aspects such as the transfer of income tax collection, a historic demand from ERC, still need to be finalized in the framework of future negotiations.
The pact, as Junqueras points out, is conditional on its approval in the Congress of Deputies, where the PSOE does not have an absolute majority, and could influence the negotiations for the next general budgets. The Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, will prepare more details on budgetary execution for the rest of the autonomous communities, which will also see increases in their resources.
However, the announcement has sparked criticism in other communities, such as Castilla y León, whose regional president, the socialist Emiliano García-Page, has warned of possible appeals to the Constitutional Court, considering that the pact "breaks equality" between territories, a debate that will intensify in the coming weeks.