The Economy of Catalonia

the State’s property and debts on various principles of universal application
such as equity, proportionality and economic capacity. It must be
trusted that, because Catalonia is in Europe, the negotiation of its separation
can unfold as befits two modern States subject to International Law.
If no voluntary negotiation takes place between subjects with full rights,
without further formality, however, the intervention of the jurisdiction
provided in International Law will evidently be required.
In both cases –negotiation or the intervention of arbitrators or judges– it
will be necessary to deal with the criteria for allocation of the debt. It
should be determined whether the debt will be distributed according to
the percentage of the population or the GDP of Catalonia, by direct allocation
or by any other criterion that may be deemed appropriate. On the
basis of its population, 16% of the debt would be the amount that should
be taken up by Catalonia, and on the basis of the GDP, 19.8%.
The criterion of distributing the predecessor State’s debts according to each
territory’s economic weight within the overall economy is often applied 33
and this would probably be the approach that would prevail for Catalonia.
The applicable criterion should be determined by negotiation or arbitration.
Likewise, it may be considered that the criterion to be applied in
the distribution of the debt will probably be the one to be applied in the
distribution of assets.
The special case of Social Security
According to data from the Bank of Spain, Spanish Social Security is at
once both the creditor and the debtor of the Spanish State. In the first
quarter of 2013, Social Security had a debt with the State of 17,188 million
euros and at the same time it was a creditor for public debt to the
amount of 60,201 million euros. The balance between the Spanish State
and Social Security was favourable to the latter to the amount of 43,013
million euros (see Table 4).
Since the balance is in favour of Social Security, the question of having
to distribute any debt other than that of Spain’s Central Administration is
not considered.
part of what is said here with respect to the distribution of assets and debt is based on the
model of distribution of property presented by Albert Pont in his book Delenda est
Hispania, p. 447 et seq.
33. Albert Pont (2012:479).
Debt and distribution of assets 151