BarcelonaERC was clamoring for a socialist gesture that would allow the budget negotiation to be unblocked and that it was in the form of a commitment to the collection of personal income tax. The gesture, for now, will not come from the PSOE, as initially claimed by the republicans, but this morning the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, made clear his “total” commitment to Catalonia taking over the collection of personal income tax. How will this be translated? The head of the executive did not give more details in a short intervention without questions framed in the meeting of the Technical Council of the Generalitat, but he did make it clear that “he will promote the agreements and parliamentary initiatives to make it possible”. This Saturday, Esquerra meets its national council in which it will have to assess whether this gesture by the president is enough to start negotiating accounts.
Sources consulted by the ARA explain that Esquerra demands from the PSC that it undertakes to vote in favor of the amendments that the republicans plan to present to the new regional financing law. The idea is to include the legal protection so that the Tax Agency of Catalonia can collect the income tax, that is, what was until now included in the bill that ERC has withdrawn from Congress pending an agreement with the socialists. The Republicans, in fact, have in mind to replace this rule with the one that must regulate the investment consortium agreed upon by Illa’s investiture and that ERC is just closing an agreement with the Spanish government.
For now, the Ministry of Finance continues to not want to stop the collection of personal income tax, although it will be necessary to see in the next few hours if it changes its position. For ERC, then, including the Catalan socialists would be a form of joint pressure from Catalonia. “My commitment to the management of the personal income tax and the Catalan treasury is total”, insisted Illa, who also added that they will continue to “promote the agreements and parliamentary initiatives to make this possible”.
It was precisely the folder for the collection of personal income tax that Esquerra had set as a condition sine qua non to negotiate the budgets, although lately the party has been lowering its short-term demands: if a few weeks ago, Junqueras himself demanded to have the agreement definitively closed, in the last few days it had already become clear that they were giving more time to the PSOE and that they would be content to take steps forward.
What does Salvador Illa’s announcement mean? If the Republicans, who have been in permanent contact with the Government, see it as sufficient, negotiations for the budgets will begin immediately, with the will of both sides to be quick. In fact, the Ministry of Economy is working with the intention of approving the project in the executive council next week to begin the processing of the accounts in Parliament. This Thursday, the budget pact was signed with the other essential partner, Commons.
Does Illa’s gesture link to the PSOE? This is precisely what, for the time being, Esquerra has not achieved. In the same week’s interview with TV3, Illa already emphasized on several occasions that the collection of personal income tax was a “commitment” that he would personally defend. It is, in fact, one of the points agreed between republicans and socialists for the investiture of Illa two years ago and which the PSOE ended up assuming as its own. It has rained a lot since then and the deadlines have been extended—initially, the Tax Agency of Catalonia (ATC) should already collect personal income tax in 2026 and, according to the Government’s plan, it would not finally be ready to do so until 2028—but the will of the Spanish government to carry out all the points of that pact has also been relaxing.
What will happen if the PSC and ERC vote in favor of the republicans’ amendment when it is put to a vote and, instead, the PSOE ends up overturning it? For now, it seems a likely option, considering that the Ministry of Finance refuses to commit to transferring the collection of taxes to the ATC.
