The Generalitat’s debt could be reduced by 10 billion euros at once. The agreement reached between PSOE and ERC yesterday includes the promise to forgive 20 percent of Catalonia’s debt to the state; this means around 15,000 million in the Catalan case. Although the agreement was reached bilaterally, Minister of the Presidency Félix Bolaños confirmed in his statement that the financial aid mechanism applied to Catalonia “can be extended to all autonomies”.
The Valencian Community is the second autonomous community with the highest liabilities in absolute terms (57,000 million at the last update in September) and the first in terms of wealth (43% of GDP). 48,344 million of this amount corresponds to the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (FLA), the mechanism that allowed the State to assume the liabilities of the regions in 2012 and to finance themselves after the 2008 crisis.
The amnesty that Bolaños announced yesterday will focus on the responsibility that this extraordinary income brings to the autonomies that have financing problems. This will therefore only affect the debt to the State, which owns most of the liabilities that Consell has accumulated. In the case of Valencia, 20% of just over 48,000 million would mean an immediate forgiveness of 9,668 million from Valencia’s coffers, significantly easing the burden of the debt.
According to Ruth Merino in her presentation, this situation became a real headache for the regional manager who prepared the accounts. In fact, responsibility forces us to allocate almost 8,000 million (more than a quarter) of the budget for next year, an increase of over 1,300 million compared to 2023 accounts, due to both the expiration of deadlines and the increase of deadlines. interest rates.
“Fair”
Consell sources said minutes after the announcement that they still need to know the specific terms of the deal to evaluate it in its entirety. In any case, they accept Bolaños’ words assuring them that what has been agreed will apply to all the autonomies of the common regime, including the Valencian regime. “If that is the case, Consell will demand at least the same treatment, because in addition to that, in our case, we are a historically underfunded community,” said sources at the Ministry of Finance.
Hours before the agreement signed between the ERC and the central government, Generalitat Valenciana president Carlos Mazón warned that canceling the debts of autonomous communities was “not the most serious thing” and advocated “working on a new system”. . However, he argued that the Valencian Community would benefit “first” if this amnesty was implemented, given the delicate financial situation it is in.
«If someone is thinking of donating even a single penny to someone, he should in any case start from the Valencian Community. And we talked from there,” he said, highlighting the possibility of the Government forgiving debts to underfunded communities as compensation for the delay in launching the new regional financing system.
Àgueda Micó, Sumar’s deputy spokesperson and Compromís representative in Congress, came to talk about the agreement. The Valencian MP stated that with this agreement, “a new door has been opened to move forward in defending the interests of Valencians.” Likewise, Micó emphasized that his education would only support debt forgiveness in Catalonia “if the Valencians are also included.” In this context, he decided that “this is fair and must happen.”