The Government and Esquerra Republicana have reached an agreement for the 2026 budgets. After two months of negotiations, socialists and republicans have reached a pact by which Catalonia will have its first accounts since 2023. To stage this understanding, the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, and the leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, will sign the pact tomorrow at 8 a.m. at the Palau de la Generalitat.
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This Monday afternoon, Esquerra Republicana convened its national council to inform about the agreement reached with the PSC. The meeting lasted more than three and a half hours. Oriol Junqueras gave all kinds of details about the content of the agreement in a speech lasting more than an hour and a quarter. The debate was long, with some national councilors demanding that the pact be put to a vote. It was agreed not to vote on it.
After the signing between Illa and Junqueras, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Alícia Romero, will appear at 9 a.m. to explain the agreement. At 11:30 a.m., it will be the turn of the president of the republicans, Oriol Junqueras, who will do the same from the headquarters of his party.
Both leaders have already shaken hands today at the event promoting the orbital railway line in Sant Sadurní d’Anoia. It was the prelude to an agreement that gives breath to the Catalan legislature and that will allow, together with the six votes from Comuns, the PSC to secure its first budgets since it returned to the Government.
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The budget pact, the details of which will be known tomorrow, is focused on mobility policies, public services (with a focus on education and health), the Catalan language, and territorial balance. This entire package is complemented by the more political part of the understanding, in which the republican party demanded “greater sovereignty gains” to support the accounts.
In addition to the orbital line, this has been concretized in the creation of a state investment company in Catalonia to plan and execute them, in the transfer of more powers for the management of the Catalan coast, a three-year program contract to strengthen the Catalan Tax Agency endowed with 527 million, and a change in the governance of the Consorci de la Zona Franca, where the Catalan side will assume 55% – 40% will be from the Generalitat and 15% from the Barcelona City Council.
With the aim of having guarantees of compliance with these pacts, the Government and the Generalitat will meet on Wednesday afternoon in Madrid with the bilateral commission and the mixed transfer commission to endorse these agreements. Once the pact with ERC is signed and reinforced through these bodies, the Government plans to bring the budgets to an Executive Council this Friday and for their parliamentary processing to begin so that they can be ratified in the Catalan Chamber at the beginning of July.
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