“Ordinality” is the key word on which the entire negotiation regarding the new regional financing pivots. A concept that generates tensions between the Government and the Ministry of Finance and to which, until now, both have avoided giving prominence in the agreements reached. Ordinality, together with singularity, are principles that generate a majority in Catalonia, and that ERC sets as red lines, but that the Government has not completely fit into a generalizable proposal.
This Thursday the Parliament has given support to ordinality as a common denominator of the coalition that supports Salvador Illa and has approved, with the votes of the PSC, several resolutions that demand that the new financing incorporate that concept. That is, going further than what has been agreed so far with the Treasury.
The majority of the Chamber has finally validated “fair and sufficient financing, which respects the principles of solidarity and ordinality, to respond to the needs of citizens with better public services.” And, also, the demand that the new model “strengthen the bilateral relationship with the State, compatible with participation in multilateral bodies”, according to the text promoted by the PSC and which has had the support of ERC and the Comuns.
But, in addition to the PSC text, that of ERC and the Comuns, which followed a similar line, has also been validated. The Republicans' text also included the request that Congress accept Esquerra's proposal to modify various laws “before the end of the year” that would allow Catalonia to collect personal income tax. Junts' economic concert proposal has been rejected, having only the support of ERC.
The coincidence again of the three groups of the investiture, PSC, ERC and Comuns, in one of the matters that is one of the pillars of the legislature, highlights that the alliance around Illa remains firm, always with the objective of obtaining more income for the Generalitat.
The idea of ordinality is very common in technical jargon but difficult to understand for laymen. It means that, when distributing resources between the autonomies, the solidarity of each one with the rest is limited to its relative position in the collection. This means that Catalonia would contribute to the system what is necessary to level the income of all the autonomies, but that it would do so, at most, to the extent that it does not lose positions with respect to the spending made in it.
The demand for financing with ordinality has been one of the clearest conclusions of the general policy debate, which has been held in Parliament since last Tuesday. There have also been some agreements on social and economic matters, in most cases thanks to the united votes of PSC, ERC and Comuns.
But the second general policy debate that Illa has faced as president has been far from a triumphant walk. Beyond financing, the socialist has had problems securing a majority around housing, one of the most prominent issues in the debate and the great banner of the Comuns.
Illa went to the chamber last Tuesday with the promise of converting all the developable land in Catalonia into buildable plots, which according to the Executive's calculations would put up to 200,000 apartments in circulation. The measure left behind the single commitment to subsidized housing of the last year and now promoted the construction of all types of properties as a solution to the housing crisis.
But Illa's big announcement on housing has been rejected by the Parliament, which represents a corrective to the Government. The Comuns have also launched a forceful warning, distancing themselves from the majority of their housing proposals.
Junts went to the plenary session with the intention that the PSC would vote affirmatively on some of its proposals. According to the theses of the main opposition party, they wanted Illa to show his commitment to the agreement that Junts and the PSOE signed in the fall of 2023 to facilitate the investiture of Pedro Sánchez in Congress. It also represented an attempt to bring Junts closer to the PSC in Parliament, after a year of practically frozen relations between the two.
However, Junts' proposal in favor of a “resolution of the conflict” that included the negotiation of a referendum, which was one of Junts' star proposals, has fallen due to lacking the support of the socialists. Yes, an ERC alternative has been approved that called for a resolution of the conflict by “advancing the national and social sovereignty of Catalonia.”