The regional deputy of IU Aragón, Marta Abengochea, stated this Wednesday that the accounts of the Autonomous Community for 2027 "are the result of greater state funding more than a management miracle". The Aragonese Executive has registered in the Courts the draft law on budgets for the next year, which amounts to 9,594.7 million euros, representing an increase of 12.3% compared with the latest approved budgets, those of 2024.
"PP and Vox sell these budgets as a success of their own, but the reality is much less triumphant. Aragón has more money because it receives more resources from the State coming from the autonomous community financing system".
"In fact, Aragón is today 4% more dependent on the income that comes from the State". As Abengochea pointed out, "the increase has to be measured in relative terms, since you have to take into account the increase in the cost of living; spending on personnel and supplies that are needed for the provision of public services has gone up, and with more resources, the same is done".
For Izquierda Unida, the key does not lie only in how much the overall volume of the budget increases, but in what model of Autonomous Community is being promoted and who are the true beneficiaries of the political decisions that are included in the accounts.
"The president Azcón intends to present these accounts as the most social in history because they allocate an important part of the new resources to Health, Education and Social Welfare. But the truth is that it is difficult to defend public services while the capacity to raise revenue in Aragón is still being reduced through new tax cuts", Abengochea said.
From the political and social group, it is considered inconsistent that the regional Government should maintain a line of tax reduction at the same time as it claims to reinforce essential public services.
The draft law includes a new reduction of personal income tax (IRPF) for incomes of up to 52,500 euros and expands various tax reliefs, including the 99% bonification on the Inheritance Tax, measures which, in the opinion of the deputy, "benefit more the highest incomes than the lowest and reduce the community's financial capacity to meet the present and future challenges".
Guarantee rights and strengthen what is public
"The real debate is not whether the budget reaches a record figure, but whether it serves to guarantee rights. Aragon needs to strengthen the public sector, move toward a fairer system of taxation, and put the community’s resources at the service of the social majority, not continue to deepen a model that benefits more those who have the most," he has asserted.
Regarding the intervention by the vice president of the Executive, Alejandro Nolasco, during the presentation of the accounts for 2027, Izquierda Unida holds that the so-called national priority that Vox introduces in the Aragonese budgets "does not seek to solve citizens’ problems, but to divide them."
"Public resources must be allocated to whoever needs them, wherever they live and wherever they were born. What undermines public services is not the presence of migrant people, but years of underfunding, cuts, and privatizations," he has denounced.
Abengochea has concluded by emphasizing that Izquierda Unida will examine in detail the budgetary text sent to the Cortes, although it has warned that that study will be carried out "according to criteria of social justice, defense of the public, and redistribution of wealth, and not based on the propagandistic headlines that accompany each presentation that the Government of Azcón makes."