The Minister of Economy and Finance of the Generalitat, Alícia Romero, has claimed this Tuesday that a differentiated deficit target should be set for the autonomous communities, instead of the current uniform 0.1%, and that in the case of Catalonia it should be "above" 0.2%, after Monday's meeting of the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy (CPFF).
In an interview on TV3 collected by Europa Press, Romero argued that "we would agree or we would put on the table the possibility that the deficit targets were different depending on the autonomous community because there are some communities that are underfunded and, obviously, we will not meet the deficit target, and other communities that are very well funded that close with a surplus".
She detailed that the Generalitat has asked the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF) to prepare a technical proposal for an asymmetric target, on which Romero maintained that it could be "above" 0.2% for Catalonia.
In relation to the processing in Congress of the new financing model, the minister has called on Junts and ERC to support a greater deficit margin for underfunded communities: "We will also see in this processing what margin the groups have to incorporate proposals, but I am sure that an asymmetric target is better and that Junts and ERC can support it than to stick with the 0.1%, this one-size-fits-all that they often say".
Calls for PP's involvement in the agreement between communities
Romero has warned that the main "difficulty" is that all autonomous communities must endorse an eventual scheme of differentiated deficit targets. However, she recalled that some regions governed by the PP, such as the Valencian Community or the Region of Murcia, have already stated that they would look favorably on this option.
"What I would like is for the PP, basically, which is the one that governs the autonomous communities or a large part of the autonomous communities, not to think about the party, not to think about the next elections, to think about the citizens," said the minister.