Junts demands Basque-style tax deal for Catalonia ahead of 29-N vote

Campaign opens in Reus

On Friday, 13 November, Junts candidate Miriam Nogueras held a rally in Reus, Tarragona, before about half a thousand party members and supporters. The town was chosen as the first stop of her Catalan tour because Junts won a Tarragona seat by only 1,248 votes over the PSC at a previous election, according to El Periódico. Two more stops in the province are planned, in Tortosa and in the city of Tarragona. Josep Maria Cruset, the party's Tarragona list head, Mònica Sales, Junts' president in the Parlament, and Pep Andreu, its Senate list head for Tarragona, also spoke at the event.

A Basque-style tax deal

Nogueras's central demand is a concierto económico, the tax model that gives the Basque Country and Navarra control over the taxes they collect. Under it, the Generalitat would collect, manage and decide on all taxes paid by Catalans, and Nogueras called the demand unpostponable. According to El Mundo, Junts would amend the LOFCA with an additional provision that takes Catalonia out of the common regime, then pass a Catalan law of its own. Speakers cast the current system as a loss, with Castellà saying at least 22,000 million euros leave Catalonia each year and projections placing the fiscal deficit near 30,000 million euros a year, or 9% of GDP. Nogueras put the gaps in public services at 4,000 million euros in health and 7,000 million in education, and called the Generalitat's position unsustainable.

“Solidarity, if it is imposed, is not solidarity, it is plunder.”

Nogueras argued that Junts would press for this model only if it gains influence after the vote, as the party has no bargaining power otherwise.

Health4,000

Education7,000

Health

4000 million euros

Education

7000 million euros

Data from the article text

Attacks on the PSC, PSOE and ERC

Nogueras said the PSC disappears once it crosses Catalonia's border, since its MPs in Congress back the Basque model for the Basques but vote with PP and Vox against Catalans managing their own money in the Parlament. She also said that in eight years of government the PSOE had put forward no new financing proposal for Catalonia, and that the last one dated from 2009 and was due for renewal every five years. Castellà accused ERC of backing the concierto in the Parlament yet losing its position somewhere on the way to Madrid, naming Gabriel Rufián as the ERC candidate who systematically rejects the model. Cruset accused the PSOE of using Catalonia to stay in power, the PP of working against Catalonia to win votes elsewhere, and ERC of giving its votes away for nothing. Nogueras said voting for the socialists validates the broken pledges of Pedro Sánchez.

“It is time for the people of this country to show a red card to President Illa and tell him: enough!”

Sales made the case that the 29 November vote should act as a correction to the Govern led by Salvador Illa, pointing to recent teacher and doctor strikes.

Framing the campaign around Illa

Junts's campaign slogan is "Catalunya al centre", and the campaign launched in the Poblenou district of Barcelona. El Confidencial reports that Nogueras has confronted Illa more sharply than Junts' deputies do in the Parlament, even though Junts, as the second-largest group, is entitled to the opposition leadership and has none. When Illa said Catalonia would be decisive and that those in the middle should step aside, Nogueras replied that the people in the middle were growing in number. Junts earlier gave Illa a 48-hour ultimatum over the riots that burned Barcelona, which were mobilised on social media, and named Collboni, Illa and the central government as political authorities responsible for the incidents.