Esquerra Republicana leader Oriol Junqueras said in a press conference this week that Catalonia and Catalan society “are facing challenges and problems daily, and also need to plan for the future”, and to respond to that, Esquerra considers that the best way to face this is “by approving the budget and reaching a series of agreements that accompany them.” “The budget that we have always wanted to approve has a dual function: one is to resolve day-to-day challenges through budgetary allocation, and the other is the opportunity to obtain new responsibilities and instruments that favour our country,” Mr Junqueras pointed out.

Regarding the agreements directly linked to the budget, Mr Junqueras highlighted the additional €500 million to be allocated to education. These resources would be sufficient to “cover the current demands” of the educational community, he said. Furthermore, he detailed other contributions such as an extra €250 million for Health, which includes a specific programme for child and youth mental health, up to €210 million in building rehabilitation programmes, €50 million for the promotion of the Catalan language in the digital sphere, more residences and places for the elderly, and 250 new integration classrooms to facilitate the learning of Catalan for newcomer children, among others.

Regarding extra-budgetary political pacts, Esquerra’s leader mentioned “issues as significant” as the Orbital Commuter Line around Barcelona, the impetus to the Public Investment Consortium, the reinforcement of Catalonia’s Tax Agency “to provide it with the necessary instruments and resources to deal with the collection of income tax, which continues to be a fundamental issue for us,” or the management of the Barcelona Free Trade Zone Consortium by Catalonia, a “formidable tool” for industrial and economic promotion, and which represents 3.8% of Catalan GDP, which will now have a Catalan majority holding.

“Esquerra seeks to give the country all the tools possible. In fact, we aspire to obtain them all, being the pro-independence party that we are,” he concluded.