With the Spanish government budget on track, it is the turn of Catalonia's budget, which Catalan economy minister Jaume Giró promised several weeks ago would be approved by the cabinet at its weekly meeting on November 9th and would immediately begin its journey through Parliament. All indications are that with few days remaining, and given the complex mechanism for approval by the membership which the CUP uses, the budget bill will be considered by cabinet next week without having secured the three votes from beyond the government that it needs to be passed by the Catalan chamber.
As usual with the CUP, they are taking it all the way to the wire and avoiding committing themselves to the public accounts until the last moment. Although the climate of secret or discreet conversations, as it were, between the economy ministry and the far-left party has been good, there is not yet any agreement, as pointed out this Sunday by the deputy Eulàlia Reguant. The situation could be summed up as "nothing settled, but nothing broken either." In any case, the discrepancies between the CUP (9 deputies) and the government (65) go beyond the budgets that are being negotiated, as the party is expressing a lot of discontent about the compliance with the investiture agreement it reached with ERC (33) and which helped, together with the deputies of Junts (32), to elect Pere Aragonès as president of Catalonia in May.
Despite this situation, the government is working hard on three ideas: to pass the accounts with the votes of the CUP, because it was the parliamentary majority of the investiture; to pass a budget that combines an increase in the main social spending items with no increase in taxes, in line with what minister Giró has promised for months; and finally one that pivots around the absolutely need to get it passed and avoid a situation where the budget is rejected without even being debated in the chamber. One might suspect, as well, that ERC's move in the Congress of Deputies facilitating the admission of Sánchez's budget also has some connection with this hypothetical eventuality.
In any case, it can be noted, albeit for reference purposes, that the Catalan Socialists, through the leader of the opposition and the party's future first secretary, Salvador Illa, have sent several messages to minister Giró to negotiate the accounts, and the Comuns have done the same. There has been no dialogue with either party, let alone negotiation. This is mainly because the majority of ERC and Junts continue to be confident that the CUP will pass the Aragonès government's first budget out of responsibility even if the path is not smooth.
No-one wants to assume a different hypothesis in order to avoid giving any excuse to the CUP, although all ministers know the importance of passing a new budget, with the extra money that it would entail and its absolutely necessity for many of the government's legislative commitments.