MADRID, 14 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The acting Minister of Finance and Public Function, María Jesús Montero, has defended that the investiture agreement with ERC to forgive part of Catalonia’s debt, in her case 20% of the total, will be extrapolated to the rest of the autonomous communities with the “same criterion”, based on the “underfinancing” that each of them endured due to the 2008 financial crisis.
“The agreement with ERC itself establishes that the same criteria will be applied to all the autonomous communities,” he assured in an interview on ‘La Hora de la 1’, on TVE, collected by Europa Press.
The pact reached by the PSOE and ERC to forgive part of Catalonia’s debt, in its case 20% of the total, will be extrapolated to the rest of the autonomous communities, but the percentage in all of them will not necessarily be 20%, but rather It will be set case by case, depending on the “underfinancing” that each of them endured derived from the 2008 financial crisis.
Thus, the criterion, according to Montero, is not the percentage of the debt that each one has, but is based on the effect that a downward economic cycle had “during the Popular Party governments” in which the autonomous communities were forced to go into debt and develop cuts in health, education or dependency policies.
The acting head of the Treasury has explained that in the text signed with ERC what is established is compensation for the decrease in resources due to that economic cycle that was experienced during the harshest moments of the financial crisis.
“We will apply it to all the autonomous communities as stated in the text that was signed with ERC,” stressed the Minister of Finance.
The pact between PSOE and ERC for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez implies that the State will forgive up to 15,000 million euros of debt from the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (FLA) to Catalonia, 20% of the 71,000 million euros that the community now has with the state. In addition, another 1.3 billion euros will be saved due to the interest that would have to be paid on that loan if it were not forgiven.
However, this debt forgiveness agreement, which will be extended to the rest of the CCAA of the common regime, does not prejudge that the percentage of debt that will be forgiven to the other regions will be 20% determined for Catalonia, since it will be to determine on a case-by-case basis the loss of resources that each of them had as a consequence of the 2008 crisis, in such a way that the percentage may be “higher or lower” than that set for Catalonia.
