Catalan pharmacies on strike to protest delay in payments by the government

Pharmacies in Catalonia on Thursday staged a strike to protest delays in the payment of 190 million euros in drugs they dispensed in the months of July and August.

Sources in the sector said about 80 percent of pharmacists had adhered to the call to shutter their businesses, with a minimum of 173 drugstores out of the 3,100 in Spain’s richest, but now cash-strapped, region remaining open to provide minimum services.

“We haven’t been paid,” the head of the Catalan pharmacists’ association (CCFC), Jordi de Dalmases, said Wednesday, referring to the 99 million euros the Catalan government had pledged to pay on Tuesday. Spain’s regions are responsible for both healthcare and education.

Shortly afterwards, the Catalan commissioner for health, Boi Ruiz, said the pharmacists would be paid the 99 million euros on Thursday morning from money borrowed from the central government’s Regional Liquidity Fund (FLA), from which Catalonia is seeking over five billion euros. “The government has done everything possible to pay before October 23,” Boi Ruiz said, adding that the regional administration, known as the Generalitat, had not received the funds from the FLA until Wednesday.

According to an agreement with the pharmacists association, the Generalitat is obliged to pay for medicines dispensed within 35 days of receiving the bill for the corresponding month. Dalmases complained that local pharmacists were being used as a “pawn” in a dispute between the Generalitat and Madrid.

The Catalan parliament has approved a motion calling for a referendum on independence for the region after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy rejected a petition from Catalan premier Artur Mas for a revenue-sharing pact with Madrid. Spain’s regions have been cut off from the wholesale funding markets because of the spike in Spain’s risk premium. “The only bank that will lend money to Catalonia is the Spanish state,” Dalmases said.

Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro on Tuesday pledged the transfer of the 99 million euros to Catalonia “immediately.” “Nowadays transfers are made by pressing a button, they don’t go by bus,” Dalmases said. “We’re economically exhausted,” he said.