The Government will raise investment in Catalonia to attract the nationalist vote | Economy
The Council of Ministers will approve this Friday the draft General State Budgets of 2019 including in it a significant increase in public investment in Catalonia and other winks to ERC and PDeCAT, in order to attract the vote of the Catalan nationalist parties. The accounts, which from their initial design by the hand of Podemos have suffered a cut of 1,200 million euros in the margin of expenditure to adjust to the fiscal path inherited from the previous Government, were reviewed this Thursday with this group, which still requires measures about rent to vote for.
The objective of the Cabinet of Pedro Sánchez is to include enough incentives for these parties, and the PNV, as to renew the parliamentary consensus of the motion of censure that brought him to power. Processing the Budgets would give a few months of air to the Executive of the PSOE after its electoral defeat in Andalusia, its main fishing ground of votes. Beyond, get to approve them, would grant Sanchez gasoline to exhaust the legislature in 2020 and avoid an electoral advance.
The main gesture with Catalonia is an increase in public investment to bring it closer to the percentage that the community contributes to GDP, as established by the Statute. In the accounts of 2018, the Executive of the PP allocated to the community 1,350 million, 13.3% of the investment destined to the autonomies, when its real weight is of 19.2%. Had their importance been respected in these accounts, the investment would have been about 1,900 million.
One of the keys to the increase in investment in Catalonia in 2019 will be the 200 million destined to comply with the ruling of the Supreme Court that recognized an investment deficit in Catalan infrastructures. A breakdown that the Government plans to begin to solve now to inject up to 759 million in four years.
The accounts of Sanchez also include an allocation of 150 million euros in 2019 to integrate the Mossos D'Esquadra in the model of regional financing, within a game of 700 million divided over four years.
These two expenses were agreed in September at the first bilateral meeting held between the Treasury and the Generalitat in eight years, in which Catalonia was also allowed to refinance short-term credit operations for a total amount of 2,773.62 million euros in the long term. that resolves Catalan funding in the short term after its issuances were refinanced by the Autonomic Liquidity Fund (FLA).
In this sense, Catalonia's compliance with the objectives of deficit, debt and payment to suppliers allows the community to pass from being subject to the FLA, and to the adjustments it requires, to depend on the Financial Facility Fund. A more flexible mechanism and within which could end up returning to the market.
In addition, the Budget includes other winks to Catalonia such as financing that TVE double the number of hours of weekly broadcast in Catalan until 40 hours.
The design of the accounts, "is not attending to the interest of one or another autonomous community", but to the general interests of all Spaniards, defended yesterday the Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño, in an interview with RNE. For its part, the Minister of Development, José Luis Ábalos, advanced from Pamplona Navarra is the community in which investment in infrastructure will grow the most in 2019.
Despite this, the additional allocation for Catalonia was criticized by the PP, which considers giving "more wood" to the secessionist parties. These forces, in turn, warned that raising investment is not enough to achieve their endorsement, that they continue to link the freedom of politicians imprisoned by the government. you procés independence
Failing to see if the government manages to add support to their accounts, which will be presented to the Congress of Deputies on Monday, yesterday tried to guarantee the support of Podemos. This came demanding in return measures to control the rental prices of homes in areas of high demand. Although these are not included in the budget draft, according to the secretary of the organization of Podemos, Pablo Echenique, after reviewing his final draft with the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, Podemos trusts to agree before the vote on the accounts. .
Economy lowers the expected advance of the GDP to 2.2% and raises the unemployment rate
One tenth less. The Government has lowered one tenth its forecast of growth of the Spanish economy for 2019, to 2.2%, ensuring that the correction is due to the "greater fiscal adjustment" that supposes to promote the Budgets under the objectives of inherited deficit of the PP, since this prevented in the Senate to boost ones with greater margin of expense. This was stated yesterday by the Economy Minister, Nadia Calviño, in an interview with RNE. Specifically, the Government estimates that with its fiscal path the revision would have been upwards, up to 2.4%.
Public salaries. The downward revision of GDP could affect the salary increase of officials in 2020, which is linked to the growth of 2019. The Ministry of Public Function, in any case, was in favor of negotiating the impact, according to the CSIF union .
Job. Calviño also said yesterday that the forecast is for Spain to create 800,000 jobs between 2018 and 2019, which after the half a million jobs created in the last year means a slowdown in the increase in employment to 300,000 new jobs this year. It raises the estimated unemployment rate from 13.8% to 14%.
