PSC Sets Another Trap for ERC With Unique Financing

The agreement on unique financing between PSC and ERC has acquired a strategic dimension in Catalan politics. This agreement, which initially seemed to be a step toward greater fiscal autonomy for Catalonia, has turned into a power play. The two actors involved pursue different objectives, but they are united in one common interest: gaining time.

While ERC tries to stabilize its political situation after its electoral collapse, PSC seeks to keep ERC as an essential partner in the Govern. In this push-and-pull dynamic, ERC needs nationalist credit, and PSC needs stability to take advantage of the void left by the processism.

This leads to a contradictory situation that well reflects this partitocratic dynamic. Indeed, while PSC proposes to "lead Spain again," ERC says that unique financing brings Catalonia closer to independence. In reality, it all comes down to keeping the legislature and facing 2027.

A Two-Actor Game with (Almost) Different Interests

ERC, with its diminished electoral base and deep internal crisis, needs to regroup and regain ground. This and only this explains why ERC decided to invest Salvador Illa as president (without prejudice to the fact that, for script needs, ERC promotes the "damn Spain"). The window of opportunity ERC saw was to sell the tripartite as an ATM to obtain concessions that they will later sell as "national achievements."

Meanwhile, PSC - which is in Palau due to abstentionism and not because of a political project - needs to control its government partners. In this sense, PSC, in collusion with Moncloa, has shown a remarkable ability to tie ERC as an essential partner. And unique financing is one of the key pieces of this poker among the weak.

Unique Financing: A Treat for ERC

Councilor Romero said that during the first months of 2025 there would be progress in unique financing. And so it has been. These days, the Govern has announced that they will have "closed" the financing agreement with Sánchez. However, what they will have closed will be a "scheme" of this agreement. That is, another nominal precision to gain time.

This progress in negotiations is related to the Catalan budgets, that is, to the immediacy of the legislature. PSC needs ERC to be willing to approve the Govern's credit supplement. Especially considering that Illa's Govern hasn't spared in pharaonic promises: public investment, administrative reform, economic leadership, housing, etc.

From here, each will take the discourse that suits them. ERC will present itself to the (ex)processist electorate as a tough partner that tightens the screws on the Govern. Meanwhile, PSC can claim the transfer of competencies since, being in the Govern, they have institutional prominence.

Alejandro Fernández's Prediction

That this legislature was about gaining time was also seen by the PPC leader, Alejandro Fernández. The popular leader did not hesitate to label the rhetoric deployment between ERC and PSC as "deception" and "scam." In fact, he labeled the financing agreement as "processism," that is, great horizons that dissolve between oblivion and other novelties.

The legislature, Fernández said on TV3, is a time supplement for processists and PSC. "ERC until their internal problems are solved, Junts until Carles Puigdemont's personal situation is solved, which is the only thing that concerns them. And PSC, which have extraordinary ability, propose this long-term horizon," Fernández said.

"If anyone believes that the Spanish Tax Agency will disappear from Catalonia, they live in Narnia." Finally, Fernández dared to make a deliberate prediction. "The Catalan Tax Agency will only serve to collect traffic fines and the miserable CO2 tax, which is especially cruel to people who can't change their car."

For now, what is true is that the sense of movement brought by the post-process has remained just that: movement. Housing has a very bleak horizon, Rodalies remains the same, and unique financing is very opaque. We are facing a legislature of pure readjustment with an eye on 2027.