Junqueras announces that the Government will forgive 17.104 million of debt

Up to three bilateral commissions are being held this week between the State and the Generalitat in which progress must be made on investments and economic matters. But a new meeting of the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy (CPFF) is also planned for this Wednesday in which the Government will present its plan to forgive 20% of the debt of each of the autonomous communities. Today Oriol Junqueras, president of ERC, has specified the numbers for the case of Catalonia and has announced that the reduction of the debt contracted through the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (FLA) will be increased from the 15,000 million euros agreed for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez to 17,104 million. “We have gone beyond what was expected,” boasted the Republican.

This measure will be approved at the CPFF meeting. It will then be up to Congress to ratify it. In any case, the 20% forgiveness is a commitment that the President of the Government already announced at the Conference of Presidents on 13 December last year. Junqueras himself has specified the update of what the agreement represents. According to him, 17,104 million represents 19.9% ​​of the total debt of the Generalitat, and in terms of the debt contracted with the FLA it is 22.2%.

In any case, the debt had some interest attached to it, which will also be saved. With the 15 billion euros, this amounted to 1.3 billion euros; with the more than 17 billion euros, the saving in interest is 1.5 billion euros, Junqueras stressed.

The president of ERC wanted to assess the figures. 17.104 million euros of debt forgiveness represents, he stressed, “everything that the Generalitat plans to invest in the next four years: in roads, tunnels, bridges or any other investment”. It is also equivalent to “everything that the Government invests in health, education, universities and research”.

"It is an unfair debt that should never have existed," he stressed, because "the Government gives credit to the Generalitat that which in reality belongs to Catalan society."

The announcement, however, will not imply a change of mind in negotiating the 2025 Generalitat budgets handled by Salvador Illa. ERC remains adamant and will not sit down to discuss them. However, Junqueras has opened up to studying the credit extension demanded by the Government as an alternative.