ERC leader Oriol Junqueras warned that it is not enough to agree on a single financing model for Catalonia to negotiate the Catalan and state budgets, but that it is also “essential” to advance in the collection of income tax by the Generalitat. In an interview with EFE, the president of ERC recognized “progress” in the negotiation of the new financing model, but stressed that, to sit down to negotiate the budgets both with the government of Pedro Sánchez and with the executive of Salvador Illa, “it will be necessary to collect the personal income tax”, which also appears in the inauguration pact signed between Republicans and Socialists. The master plan published by the Generalitat, however, postpones until 2028 the moment when the Tax Agency of Catalonia (ATC) will be able to assume “certain functions” in the area of this tax.
ERC and Illa have placed January as the key month to unblock the financing negotiations and conclude the agreement on the new model, which should be presented during the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF) that the first vice president and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, stressed, would take place between the first and second months of 2026. With the negotiations in their home stretch, Junqueras warned that “it would be irresponsible to prolong these negotiations indefinitely.
“ERC does not want these negotiations to drag on indefinitely, because this harms Catalan society,” said Junqueras, who stressed that financing must respect the principle of ordinality. “If the agreement on the collection of personal income tax takes longer, the budget negotiations will take longer,” he warned.
Junqueras stressed that the socialists “wanted to negotiate the financing model first, and then the collection of personal income tax.” In September, ERC submitted to the Congress of Deputies of Catalonia its bill to collect personal income tax, but postponed its parliamentary process until 2026 so as not to “distort” the negotiations on the financing model. This initiative, which was initially to be presented jointly with the PSOE, proposes the reform of three laws – the Organic Law of Financing of Autonomous Communities (LOFCA), which regulates the financing of common regime autonomies and the tax transfer law – to allow the Tax Agency of Catalonia (ATC) to collect personal income tax.
In this context, Junqueras assured that ERC “wants there to be budgets everywhere” and called on the socialists to “demonstrate” that they too want it. “The one who must demonstrate that it wants budgets is the Socialist Party. And if it wants them, it must demonstrate it by respecting its commitments. What is not acceptable is that they make commitments and sign agreements and that they do not respect them,” he criticized.
The ERC leader said he had already seen “many changes” of opinion within the government and the PSOE, “from saying they would comply to not complying, saying they would not comply and understanding that if they did not comply there would be no new agreements.” “We also saw that the ERC did not give in, and we are convinced that this persistence is what will ultimately give the people of this country a result that meets the needs of the country,” added Junqueras, who stressed that “if it depended only on the Socialist Party, none of this would happen.”
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