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  • Torra refuses to cut separatist spending to fight coronavirus

The Parliament of Catalonia has approved this Friday the first budgets of the Generalitat since 2017, thanks to the endorsement of JxCat, ERC and Catalunya in Comú Podem , although the accounts are out of date due to the coronavirus crisis, so now it will be necessary to make adjustments to adapt them to the situation.

After 10 p.m., in a marathon vote in a reduced-format plenary session - 16 deputies voted in person, 93 by delegation and another 25 did so electronically - the Parliament approved the project that the Govern agreed with the commons, whose abstention It has served to validate the bulk of the articles.

The commons have also managed to get their amendment approved to allocate one million euros more to the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation : after two ties in the voting, the PPC has given its support to the proposal and has allowed its approval.

In his speech in plenary session, the Vice President of the Govern, Pere Aragonès , acknowledged that when the project began to be drawn up "six months ago" there was no alarm about the coronavirus and, therefore, the accounts will have to be "reoriented" to adapt them to the needs generated by the crisis, but still believe that they are "better" than the extended budget for 2017, the year of the illegal referendum of 1-O.

The Minister of Economy and Finance praised the "responsibility" of the commons by facilitating the approval of the budgets, which allow the Government to count on an additional 3,000 million euros , and has reproached PSC and CUP for their "immobilist and conservative" position.

Aragonès has appealed to all the opposition to open themselves to "great consensus" to make possible a "great agreement at the national level for reconstruction" after the ravages caused by the coronavirus.

In addition, it has asked the Executive of Pedro Sánchez to help the Generalitat with "transfers" of resources, and not with "loans" with interest , facing the reconstruction phase.

In the same vein, the President of the Generalitat, Quim Torra, had admitted, in the control session, that the budgets "are not enough" to face the health cost that the coronavirus crisis is generating , so they will be necessary " direct state transfers, and not loans. "

"We need to have a State in favor, that the Spanish Government plays in favor," insisted Torra, who advocates that this "crisis be paid by the State", that is, the group of "administrations".

Ciudadanos, who brought the budgets to the Council of Statutory Guarantees and who was demanding a new project, has denounced through his deputy José María Cano that these accounts "are a trip to the past" and are even "less useful " after the crisis.

The PSC deputy Alicia Romero has also attacked "sterile" budgets that will not serve to respond to the needs arising from the COVID-19 crisis, although she has reached out to agree on the necessary modifications.

Those who have supported the accounts, along with JxCat and ERC, have been the commons, whose parliamentary leader, Jéssica Albiach , has argued that they should be approved as being "the best tool" to build a shock plan in the face of the current crisis.

The CUP deputy Maria Sirvent , who has denounced that the budgets are "expired", supposes "a new condemnation to the popular classes" and prioritizes the payment of the debt to the banks , has been more critical .

The deputy of the PPC Santi Rodríguez has warned that the budgets designed by the Govern do not serve to face the crisis, reason why he has asked that they be modified following the recipe "more social policy, boost of the economy and less process" .

For his part, Vox deputy in Congress for Barcelona Ignacio Garriga has denounced in a statement that these accounts "prioritize the separatist agenda over health security."

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