The Economy of Catalonia

itory. The same applies to the programmes relating to «financial and tax administration».
Of course, some of these services may possibly require
strengthening, but they will not need to be implemented.
As for transfers to other administrations, only the transfers made by the
Spanish State to the Catalan local governments should be counted as additional
expenditure since there would no longer be any basis for counting
the expenditure in the form of autonomous regional funding that is
granted to the Generalitat. In 2009, the transfers to local governments
increased substantially as a result of the «Plan E» (the «Spanish Plan for
Stimulating the Economy and Employment»). In this paper, we have
decided not to consider this Plan as an additional expense to be assumed
by the Generalitat because of its purely conjunctural nature.
It has been considered that Catalonia should bear part of the Spanish State’s
public debt, entailing the assumption of an annual funding cost for the payment
of interest. Specifically, part of the financial cost of the Spanish State’s
debt is allocated to Catalonia. This amount is calculated on the basis of the
proportion of the Spanish State’s expenditure in Catalonia according to the
flow criterion in the period 2002-2005 versus the total annual financial cost
of the debt. That is to say, it is considered that only the debt corresponding
to the expenditure made directly in Catalonia in the period 2002-2005 is assumed
since this interest involved is the result of an expenditure that was
made in the past.
Apart from the Spanish State’s expenditure, the spending incurred by other
Spanish State public bodies and entities should be counted. Specifically, from
the whole conglomeration of Spanish State autonomous bodies, Spanish
State agencies and other public bodies, those considered necessary to structure
an independent Catalan State have been taken into account. Accordingly,
we have considered the expenditure made in Catalonia by AEAT (the
Spanish State Tax Administration Agency) since Catalonia would require
the necessary means to manage and collect taxes. These means can be equivalent
to those which AEAT currently possesses in Catalonia. A similar reasoning
has been applied in the case of CSIC (the Spanish National Research
Council), assuming that Catalonia would continue to invest in research.
A detailed study of the group of agencies and organisations shows that more
than half of its total expenditure corresponds to FEGA (Spanish Agrarian
Guarantee Fund), whose function is to distribute the EAGGF (European
Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund) resources among Spain’s Au-
138 The Economy of Catalonia