Mariano Rajoy and Catalonian leader Artur Mas meet today to discuss why the region's tax balance is out of sorts. Catalonia paid 8.4 billion euros in taxes, but received less, which Mas will use as proof that the national government has abused Catalonia from a tax perspective and leverage to ask for more money.
That said, Spain says that issue is not on the table. Nor is tax reform. Once again, even though the specialists that balance the budget said that the system is "terrible," Finance chose to help regional governments meet their deficit goals through revised financing plans. Evidently, the meeting between Rajoy and Mas will involve several topics. The most important is certainly the Jordi Pujol scandal. If Mas plays his cards right, he will leverage this scandal when making his points. Foremost, Catalonia wants its own tax system and a central court that's independent of Spain's Supreme Court. This would give the region complete oversight of its own affairs. But who would control their own corruption scandals?
It is unlikely that Rajoy will make any political or economic concessions when Catalonia, or at least some of its leaders, have been implicated in scandals of their own and compromised a chance at negotiations.
