The Government agrees with unions and employers that the Budgets include measures worth 1,440 million

The president of the Generalitat and the leaders of employers' associations and unions, during the signing of the agreement this Monday. David Oller (Europa Press)

The pact on the budgets between the Government and the main unions and employers has already been sealed, while the political agreement in Parliament, which has to allow the accounts to go ahead, is still to come.

The minority government of ERC has chosen to go to the social agents and include them for the first time in the preparation of the Budgets, taking into account their demands.

In this way, and given the difficulties that ERC has encountered so far in adding other parliamentary groups to its project, it wants to take advantage of this pact with unions and employers to drag out a political agreement.

The commitment reached by the Government is to include measures worth up to 1,440 million euros,

between those that are aimed at social protection and those that promote employment and industry.

The CC OO and UGT unions, as well as the employers' associations Foment del Treball and Pimec, have celebrated the agreement, which the President of the Generalitat has described as "historic", but they have demanded that the accounts be effectively approved in Parliament with "speed ”.

One of the points, already announced last week by the Department of Social Rights, is the update of the Income Sufficiency Indicator of Catalonia (IRSC), the scale that is used to set the amounts of social assistance such as Guaranteed Income, and also to calculate who has access to them.

Frozen for 12 years, the IRSC is located at 569 euros in 14 payments, while the cost of living has risen 30.1% in this period.

The claim of the social entities was that it increase in the same proportion as the CPI since 2017, when the Guaranteed Income was approved (that is, 15.9%).

Or, at least, that it increase enough to be above the IPREM, the state scale, to which the Government has finally agreed, which will raise it by 8%, up to 615 euros per month in 14 payments.

The second specific point refers to employment policies, for which the Government has committed to executing a budget of 595 million euros in 2023 to strengthen the Public Employment Service of Catalonia in challenges such as structural unemployment or the aging of the population.

In the field of Vocational Training, 14.5 million will be allocated to create at least 257 new groups and improve professional guidance for young people, after in the last two courses many students were left without a place to study what they wanted.

Finally, the Government has promised to execute all the items assigned by the National Pact for Industry by 2023, which add up to a total of 680 million euros.

The agreement with the social agents includes other commitments that do not have specific budget items,

The president of Foment, Josep Sánchez Llibre, has stressed that the agreement is "historic and very relevant", although he has stressed that it is insufficient as the political agreement is still missing, which, in his opinion, will not arrive before January or February.

The general secretary of Pimec, Josep Ginesta, recalled that "every day without budgets is a day in which the possibility of creating jobs and generating wealth is lost", and he considered that the agreement with the social agents marks " a before and after” in the social dialogue.

The leaders of CC OO and UGT, Javier Pacheco and Camil Ros, have also pointed out the importance of the Government taking the social agents into account, although they admit that this has been the case due to the weakness of ERC as a minority in the Government.

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