The deficit and debt objectives for each of the public administrations until 2026 return to Congress where this Thursday they face a second vote after the Senate, where the Popular Party has an absolute majority, overthrew them on February 7. In her initial intervention on the platform as a defender of this path, the first vice president and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, has accused the PP of “acting against the own interests of the autonomous communities” where it governs by vetoing it. These caps are essential because they serve as a reference for the 2024 General State Budgets, which are currently being prepared.
The Council of Ministers had to approve a new path, in which it maintained all the previous figures and everything indicates that it will be approved in Congress (despite the rejection of the popular ones), but it will fall again in the Senate. This is something “incomprehensible” for the minister, since the current figures give greater budgetary flexibility to autonomous communities and city councils in relation to the objectives that the Executive sent to the European Commission in its April Stability Program.
“What they are doing is harming the citizens, who are the recipients of the public services that are managed in the territorial administrations,” he has disfigured Alberto-Núñez Feijóo’s party, “it has neither head nor tail.” Montero has also attacked the PP’s proposal of not hindering the approval of the path if tax reductions were adopted because “what it intends is the same as always, an indiscriminate reduction in taxes that benefits high incomes and assets” as it has done in the regions where he governs.
Thus, the Government’s ‘number two’ has framed this path in a context of the return of European fiscal rules, suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, and has recalled that the Government has “always” met the objective of reducing the deficit. “which is the best way to preserve a strong welfare state” and the sustainability of public services.
Likewise, he has defended that even if the PP vetoes the path, the budgets will be presented, based on the objectives sent to Brussels in April, and he has wondered what will happen to the accounts that the regions have presented based on the deficit objective that this Thursday it is put to a vote (which allows a tenth of a deficit compared to the balance of the April document). Specifically, the autonomies could close with a hole of 0.1% and not with the balance (zero deficit) that was required of them a few months ago. Meanwhile, the municipalities could end the year in balance and would not have to achieve a surplus of two tenths, as initially started.
The demands of the PP to give the green light to the new path
The Popular Party conditioned their vote in favor of the stability objectives to three demands, which included a tax reduction (deflation of the personal income tax rate and reduction of VAT on meat, fish and preserves, as well as electricity and gas), to a more balanced distribution of these deficit ceilings between the State and the communities, and to the creation of a fund destined for social policies, which have not been able to quantify.
The path being debated is identical to that laid down by the Senate: the public deficit of all administrations will drop this year to 3% of GDP, complying with European fiscal rules, to 2.7% of GDP in 2025 and to 2.7% of GDP in 2025. 5%. in 2026. The debt will drop to 106.3% of GDP in 2024, 105.4% of GDP in 2025 and 104.4% of GDP in 2026.
The path is accompanied by the non-financial spending limit or spending ceiling for 2024, which is not put to a vote, and which amounts to 199.12 billion euros once European funds are included, which is 0.5% more than in 2023. .
