Catalans 'Ignore' the new financing agreement

Whether it's because it's summer. Whether it's because nobody knows exactly the scope of the agreement. Whether it's because, as usual, each party has tried to sell their own interested narrative. It doesn't matter. Whatever the reason, the financing agreement for Catalonia reached between the Government and the Govern has caused absolute skepticism among Catalan citizens.

The main reason is clear. Everyone knows that, even if there are improvements in financing, Catalonia will remain the autonomous community where the most taxes are paid. This definitely won't change. No matter what they say, an improvement in financing also won't fix a Catalonia that's falling apart. Nor will it especially improve a chronically collapsed healthcare system. Nor will it improve an education level that's at rock bottom. Nor will the infrastructure improve. Nor security. Nor housing. Etcetera.

The main ones harmed, the citizens

As is usually the case in these situations, almost nobody is satisfied with the new agreement. The socialists want to champion a centrality that aims to minimally please everyone, but all it's done is anger everyone. From the pro-separatist parties, they see the agreement as insufficient. From the constitutionalists (and especially the regional leaders), they see it as a break from the current model that puts the financing of most communities at risk.

Surely both sides are right. Some would like to be the Basque Country, but they'll never be. The others are increasingly tired of seeing how the socialists make concessions out of pure electoral necessity even if that puts part of the services of the vast majority of autonomous communities at risk.

The agreement makes some concessions to Catalonia and leaves open the possibility that there could be more, although without fully specifying them. The pact, then, is nothing more than an open door to the real hot potato Pedro Sánchez faces: the new financing model for the autonomous communities. A new model that, once several concessions have been made to the Generalitat, will end up provoking new concessions to the rest of the communities that won't allow grievances. In the end, those who'll pay will be the usual ones: the citizens, either through taxes or through debt. A debt that's ever greater and has skyrocketed since President Pedro Sánchez became president. In the end, those who come after will pay for the party.