The Government of Catalonia will approve this Tuesday, during the last meeting of the Executive Council of the year, the extension of the budgets with which the Generalitat will begin 2026. This is a technical measure that will give continuity to the 2023 accounts, the last approved. As provided for in the regulations, the decree will enter into force on January 1 and will serve to guarantee both the ordinary functioning of the administration and the provision of public services, at least until the approval of a new economic law.
The government underlines the obligatory nature of the measure and assures that it has not thrown in the towel so that Catalonia has new budgets throughout the year 2026. To do this, it would need a majority which, until now, has eluded it, but which Salvador Illa’s team hopes to be able to rebuild, if possible around the investiture partners, ERC and Comuns.
For the moment, there has been no contact with any group to discuss the new accounts and the government assures that the legislative project is still in an initial phase of internal work at the Department of Economy. However, ERC and Comuns have put their conditions on the table for possible support for the accounts.
Republicans directly tie their vote to progress on “one-stop funding,” over which various groups are negotiating with the Department of Finance and the government. Oriol Junqueras has shown himself ready to open his hand so that there are new accounts in Catalonia when an agreement on the financing model is reached with Minister María Jesús Montero, which both parties hope will happen during the first quarter of 2026.
For their part, the Commons have decided to take firm measures in terms of housing as a condition for being able to negotiate new budgets with the government. One of the most important topics for Jéssica Albiach’s training was the anti-eviction office and the register of large landlords, as well as the implementation of the sanctions regime against violations of the Housing Act.
Most of these issues requested by the Commons were gradually unblocked during this autumn, during which the limitation on seasonal rental prices was also extended. The proposal to prevent speculative purchases, however, remains to be resolved.
Despite the difficulties in finding a parliamentary majority in the economic area, the Government has always maintained that its objective is to have new budgets in 2026, even if it must for the moment extend those of two years ago.
The last accounts were approved in February 2023 by Father Aragonès, thanks to an agreement that included the PSC and the Comuns and definitively bypassed Junts. The following year, Aragonès and Illa reissued their melody, but it was the Comuns who opposed the agreement, which led the president at the time to call elections.
The technical extension of this Tuesday must return to the amounts planned in 2023, so if its validity is extended, credit supplements could be necessary again, as has already happened this year. In accordance with the law, the decree will extend the initial appropriations approved in 2023 for the expenditures of all departments of the Generalitat and its public sector, except those intended for programs or actions that end this year. Only personnel expenses will be adjusted to the provisions of December 31, 2025, to be able to pay all payroll at their current level.
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