A day before the last plenary session of the year in Barcelona City Council, ERC has announced that it will – once again – save Ada Colau’s budget for 2023. After the municipalities backed Pere Aragonès’ budget in the Parliament of Catalonia last week, it was an open secret that Ernest Maragall’s group would eventually ease the accounts of the coalition government of Barcelona en Común and PSC. However, to date, the agreement has not been made official.
This week, Republicans and the government team held various meetings. ERC claims that as a result of these meetings, they managed to scrape together 100 million euros to carry out “a social shock plan”. It is thanks to this game that Ernest Maragall’s men have announced that while they will not vote to support the budget, they will abstain, ultimately leading to the same consequence: approving the accounts.
Once the Barcelona accounts are approved, the ball returns to the Catalan Parliament. Specifically to the PSC of Salvador Illa, which after the rescue of the last pieces of furniture by the ERC before the municipal elections of the Colau government – but also of the socialist Jaume Collboni – must make the decision whether to authorize the accounts of Aragonès.
ERC has saved all budgets for the second term of Ada Colau and Jaume Collboni. Those of 2020 and 2021 have been approved by the Independentistas. Maragall tried to stand out in the 2022 budgets. In November 2022, Republicans announced they would vote against the budgets. A week later, Maragall – visibly annoyed – came to the fore and admitted he had to abstain, thereby facilitating approval of Colau’s figures, because the Commons in Parliament had done the same.
This Thursday it was not Maragall who finally admitted that ERC is the main partner of the governing coalition. The one who showed his face was Councilor Jordi Coronas, who defended: “We do not cross Sant Jaume Square to approve budgets.”
Coronas justified his faction’s abstention by denouncing that the BComú and PSC government team did not allow much negotiating space in the budgets and that thanks to Republican intervention they managed to “scratch 100 million for a social plan and economic shock.” in the midst of the inflationary crisis. “It’s not in our budget. It’s not what we wanted to do, but we believe it’s the best we could do to protect the public in a year of runaway inflation.”
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The final vote will take place this Friday in plenary, where the ruling coalition will vote in favour, ERC will abstain, Junts and PP will vote against and Valents and Ciudadanos have yet to explain their position.
The budget project presented in October (and previously agreed in the municipal coalition government between Common and PSC) reaches a record sum of 3,600 million euros (5.5% more than 2022) and an investment of 830 million. In the event of an election year, it freezes tariffs compared to its neighbors.
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