The resolution of the zero vote, lengthens and complicates the political blockade after last Sunday’s elections, the complex scenario makes a quick investiture improbable, removes the possibility of having Budgets for 2024 on time, whose deadlines are already very tight.
Whether it is with a government in its summer dress after a long negotiation or with electoral repetition, everything seems to indicate that it will be necessary to extend the 2023 accounts for at least a few months, since it is practically impossible for there to be a budget project in Congress before October. as required by law.
Traditionally, it is assumed that the Budgets are the most important law of the year -the rejection of those of 2019 on the occasion of the call for elections-, since it constitutes the framework of the Government’s economic policy, defining everything from investments to taxation or pensions .
In the case of the 2024 accounts, two additional factors must be added: they are the legal instrument where it will not be possible to collect the endowments for European fund projects and promote the first exercise of the new European fiscal rules, which are still pending. to try
Out of time
Regardless of when the Government is formed or if there is an electoral repetition, the eventual Budgets for 2024 would already be out of date, since the calendar indicates that the previous works will begin in July. Had it not been for the elections, the spending ceiling and deficit path would have been approved in July, which in turn would have required the convening of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF) and the National Commission of Local Administrations ( CNAL) to communicate your deficit references.
The calendar indicates that before the end of September the Government has to approve the bill and take it to the Cortes -something that seems impossible when the previous works have not yet begun-, where the processing usually takes around three months.
The revaluation of pensions is guaranteed
The country never runs out of current Budgets, since if there are no new approved accounts, those of the previous year are automatically extended, normally accompanied by a decree with the necessary adjustments to guarantee their proper functioning and, even, to adopt some such measures. .
Thus, even if there are no budgets for 2024, pensions will be revalued with the CPI because this is included in its reform and the increase in the salary of public employees agreed with the unions could also be approved by decree, as happened in the year 2019. More Complex is the articulation of European funds and, above all, of the new European fiscal rules, which point to a completely new way of monitoring the fiscal stability of countries and which Spain will face without reference to a deficit.
new budget extension
The almost inevitable extension of the 2023 Budget will be the ninth of democracy, after those of 1978, 1982, 1995, 2011, 2016, 2017 and the two of the 2018 accounts, the only ones with a double extension. The 2017 accounts entered into force in June and those of 2018, in July, after going through an unprecedented process that included the change of government as a result of Pedro Sánchez’s motion of no confidence against Mariano Rajoy.
The 2018 accounts were closed in the longest-lived of democracy (they were in force until the end of 2020) energy of that year and shortly after the pandemic broke out. Once the hardest part of the pandemic was over, the budgets have achieved some stability: those of 2021, 2022 and 2023
