almost a month out due to pubic osteomyelitis that forced him to first be in the hospital and then to continue antibiotic treatment at home. His priority is to approve the accounts for 2026, the first of his mandate. Visibly thinner—he still receives medication intravenously—Illa offered a message from the Gothic Gallery of the Palau in which he said he knew what the Catalans were demanding. “I know what Catalonia needs. I know what needs to be done (…) I am more determined than ever to continue doing this work,” he proclaimed.
who is aware of the citizen’s discomfort with housing and their concern about the episodes of the climate emergency. And, of course, Rodalies. “The absolute priority is our safety and protection,” he said, referring to the review of the railways, ensuring that the Government is willing to solve this colossal mobility problem in a “course of demand and ambition” until reaching the parameters of “excellence.” Rodalies trains run with speed limits at least until April.
Illa asked to avoid “fatalism, conformism and irresponsibility”, he did not cite any group but the Government denies that the situation is catastrophic and Junts promotes that it be submitted to a vote of confidence. Illa will not do so and hopes that budget negotiations will move forward. The main challenge is to gain support from Esquerra. The leader of that party, Oriol Junqueras, yesterday certified the change in strategy in the negotiation of the accounts. Their support continues to depend on Catalonia being able to collect personal income tax, but the Republicans are now choosing to withdraw their bill in Congress, thus avoiding losing it in the next plenary session, and are negotiating with the PSOE to include it as amendments to the rule that will make the new financing official.
“It is easier to approve the amendments related to personal income tax within the financing model package,” Junqueras assured. The ERC leader now places the pact on these amendments as the milestone that would open the budget negotiation. The financing law has time to move forward: it must first go through a Fiscal and Financial Policy Council before the summer. In between, and seeing the opportunity to exploit the focus on infrastructure, ERC seeks to activate the Infrastructure Consortium, a point of the Illa investiture agreement. ERC thus somehow relaxes the point of personal income tax, leaving the calendar in the hands of the socialists, but at the same time sneaking another point into the negotiation.
They demand as an essential requirement to approve the accounts that the Parliament approve a law to prohibit speculative sales, limited, yes, in time and to the stressed areas. Jéssica Albiach, parliamentary leader, warned on Saturday that it is costing them more than they would like to reach an agreement despite the fact that jurists’ reports support the constitutionality of the measure. The Communes also ask to increase housing allocations to 1.2 billion and reduce the waiting lists in healthcare, particularly in traumatology, and increase dining scholarships.
