Only 10% investment
Rajoy relegates Catalonia to 4th place with €1.179 billion, far from its contribution to GDP and less than half of 2011 investment
Montoro boasts of paying public services for “biggest beneficiary”
The third additional provision of the Catalan Statute turned the presentation of each new Spanish State budget into a finely calculated exercise to determine whether investment really reaches the 18% of Spanish GDP Catalonia represents. Since Mariano Rajoy arrived in La Moncloa, however, the 18% that symbolises equitable treatment has vanished, even on the eve of plebiscitary elections such as 27-S, where the Spanish prime minister is in a position to play the economic card to boost the Catalan PP vote.
In his 2016 budget, which Rajoy is pushing through Congress against the clock, taking advantage of an unusually frantic August, the Spanish State will invest €1.179 billion in Catalonia, 10.7% of the total allocated among all autonomous regions. The investment represents 10% more than in 2015, the highest increase of any region, but, paradoxically, is not even half of the €2.5 billion allocated by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in the midst of a recession in 2011.
The investment, which Treasury jargon refers to as “regionalised” - a €13.2 billion cake divided into seventeen slices - awards Andalusia €1.8 billion, 16.5% of the total, and a percentage that is very close to the weight of its population in the State (18%), which the region's 2007 Statute set as a criterion for distribution. The last budget of this government, which is shrouded in controversy because it will tie the hands of the government that wins the Spanish elections in the autumn, awards the second largest amount to Castile and León (€1.4 billion, 13%) and third largest to Galicia (€1.3 billion, 12.3%).
Leaving regional slices of the cake to one side, Finance minister Cristobal Montoro used additional money from the funding model - a different concept - to present Catalonia as “the biggest beneficiary”. Why? Because of the €1.8 billion in extra funding and €1.02 billion saved on interest thanks to the State. “We are ensuring the State funding of public services for Catalans from the beginning of the legislature”, Montoro claimed. What he did not mention, however, was that the State will pay €92 million per day in interest (equivalent to €33 billion annually) to maintain a debt of 98% of its GDP.
€1.3 billion investment allocated to Mediterranean corridor
The Ministry of Development is devoting more than half of its budget (€5.4 billion) to the rail network and €2.8 billion to roads. The Mediterranean high-speed rail corridor is a priority, and will receive €1.3 billion: €805.2 million for the widening of international tracks - the so-called third track - and the high-speed connection on the stretch Barcelona-Tarragona-Castelló-Valencia-Alicante-Murcia and €60.8 more on the section French border-Barcelona- Tarragona. The Ministry has not forgotten the other corridors, however, and is investing €1.1 billion in the northwest and €1.01 billion in the north. As for the Port of Barcelona, it is to receive an allocation of €134.6 million from the ministry run by Ana Pastor.