A recent discussion between four of Catalonia's last five economic ministers since 2003 - namely, Antoni Castells, of the PSC (2003-2010), Andreu Mas-Colell, CDC (2010-2016), Oriol Junqueras , ERC (2016-2017) and current portfolio holder Jaume Giró, of Junts - led, and it is not the first time this has happened, to the question of whether or not Catalonia really had the possibility of obtaining, like the Basque Country, its own special economic arrangement within the state, at the beginning of the Spanish transition in the 1970s. And also about whether this economic concert option was ruined by mistakes, negligence or miscalculation of the parties, which were at that time considered simply as nationalists. The debate, organized by the newspaper Ara, would not have had further consequences, and perhaps not so much media coverage, if the economic suffocation of Catalonia were not what it is and if, among the public, former president Jordi Pujol had not been present - who, with great lucidity, at the age of 91, became the surprise guest of the debate.
Revisiting the narrative in pursuit of a particular interest or through partial readings of documents leaves the story of those years incomplete, and the fundamental period which does shed some light on that issue is none other than that of the drafting of Catalonia's Statute of Autonomy of the transition, referred to as the Statute of Sau because the representatives who prepared it met in the parador of that name, beside the Sau reservoir. This was in the second half of 1978, and the meetings were attended by the 20 participants appointed by the Assembly of Catalan Parliamentarians, which brought together deputies and senators who had been elected in the elections to the Constituent Assembly on June 15th, 1977. It is important to remember the representation that each of the Catalan parties had in Congress: the Socialists of the PSC (15), Pacte Democràtic - a pro-Catalan coalition which included CDC - (11), the centre-right UCD (9), the communist PSUC (8), the Catalan party Unió (2), ERC (1) and the Popular Alliance (1).
It is easy to add up the numbers in each bloc to easily understand that the Spanish-state-based parties of right and left (mostly PSC, UCD and PSUC), had a much greater force than the parties of strict Catalan loyalty. I remember that there, in Sau, there were debates both heated and fiery - in those days, communications directors did not exist, access to the speakers was easy and permanent, among other reasons because journalists and politicians shared the same hotel facility. It was mainly about the language and education areas - but also about autonomous community funding and the economic arrangement. The left tipped the scales in both debates, aligning itself with the Catalan nationalists on the first issue, that of language, and dismissing the second, economic, without any option. However, that turned out to be useless, as Adolfo Suárez's UCD government of Spain prevented Catalan from being the exclusive official language in Catalonia and education ceased to be an exclusive competence. The rebound against the statute was already on the agenda.
In this context, it was absolutely impossible to win the battle of the economic concert for Catalonia, which the Spanish Socialists of the PSOE did not want but neither did the UCD. The numbers did not come out against the Suárez government and at no time was there a clear path forward. People didn't try hard enough? That idea doesn't match the truth. It was fought for and it was lost. The Catalan nationalist majority would not arrive until 1984 and then it was too late. The military coup attempt of February 23rd, 1981 had taken place by then and the autonomous communities were already seen as the problem, not the solution for a Spain with a model which, no matter what you say, was very, very centralist.
If this was the real debate for the drafting of the 1979 Statute, why is there this accusation that it was the nationalists themselves who did not want the concert for Catalonia? Very simple. Pedro Luis Uriarte, economic and finance minister of the Basque government between 1980 and 1984, and considered the father of the current Basque concert, published an extensive compilation work in 2016, nearly 2,000 pages long, in 11 volumes, under the title El concierto vasco, una visión personal ("The Basque concert, a personal vision"). In volume seven, entitled "A unique and differentiated model that has run into problems" we need to look at the third chapter which states, "Another economic alternative: the request for an economic concert for Catalonia."
Uriarte explains in the book that there was a meeting in 1980 between then-Spanish finance minister Jaime García Añoveros, then-Catalan economy minister Ramon Trias Fargas, and himself, in which the Spanish minister offered a financing system similar to the Basque concert. Uriarte details that Trias Fargas did not want it because he did not want to collect taxes and also because he thought that negotiating with Madrid could take more resources than managing the concert. Very possibly it was exactly as Uriarte tells it, but two things must be borne in mind: first, that the Catalan Statute had already been approved with the radical opposition of the UCD government of including the concert; and that Añoveros was a minister under the strict subordination of Fernando Abril Martorell, Spanish deputy PM for economic affairs. Secondly, that any serious offer would have been made to Jordi Pujol since in Madrid they knew very well that Trias Fargas did not decide these things.
History always has many narrators and many interpretations, but facts are sacred. For any truth there are sometimes other truths contradictory to it, that give a better explanation of what was and what was not. And the truth is that Catalonia never had within its reach an arrangement like the Basque concert to give a margin of financial autonomy that it now lacks.