The Minister of Finance, Arcadi España, has assured that the Council of Ministers will give the green light this Tuesday to the non-financial spending limit—known as the spending ceiling—and to the budgetary stability objectives, to then send both agreements to the General Courts, where they will have to be voted on.
In the appearance after the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy (CPFF), the head of Finance has presented the budgetary stability path that the Government has transferred today to the autonomous communities and which has gone ahead despite the rejection of the Popular Party councilors.
The Executive's proposal places the deficit of all Public Administrations at 1.8% of GDP for the next fiscal year. Within this distribution, the Central Administration will concentrate the bulk of the imbalance, with 1.5%; the autonomous communities will have a deficit target of 0.1%; local entities must remain in budgetary balance (0%); and Social Security will register a deficit of 0.2%.
España has explained that the majority of the 1.5% deficit target set for 2027 in the Central Administration (1.2%) is linked to transfers to Social Security, as stipulated by the Pact of Toledo, for an amount close to 23 billion euros.
He added that another tenth of the Central Administration's deficit in 2027 is due to the new tax on financial entities, whose collection in 2026 will correspond to the State and will be distributed in 2027 among the autonomous communities.
"Therefore, there is no room for criticism that the majority of the deficit falls on the General State Administration, but rather that it is also shared equally with the autonomous communities," defended Arcadi España.
The stability path that the Government has put on the table for the autonomous communities maintains the deficit target at 0.1% of GDP for 2028 and 2029, the same as proposed last year and which was rejected by the Congress of Deputies. Over the three-year period, that tenth of a deficit grants the autonomies a fiscal margin of 5,849 million.
To make this budgetary space possible in the CCAA, the Central Administration will be the subsector that will assume the main deficit reduction effort also in 2028 and 2029, when it must stand at 1.4% and 1.3%, respectively.
Regarding the subsector of local entities, the objective of budgetary balance is set for the three indicated fiscal years. "This is a more comfortable objective for their interests, which will allow them to guarantee and improve public services closest to the citizen," Hacienda has defended.
In today's session, the public debt objectives for the autonomous communities have also been validated, which will stand at 18.9% in 2027, 18.3% in 2028, and 17.7% in 2029.
This stability path for the period 2027-2029 means granting the regions a total fiscal margin of 5,849 million. "In other words, voting against the objectives would imply that the communities would have to carry out an adjustment of 5,849 million," Hacienda has warned.
The Government's forecast is that the Congress of Deputies will submit the budgetary stability objectives and the deficit distribution among the different levels of administration to a vote in the Plenary Session on July 14.
If they are rejected on that date, as has already happened on other occasions during the legislature, a second vote will be held in another plenary session on July 23. Both the plenary session on the 14th and the one on the 23rd will be extraordinary, as they will be held outside the ordinary session period of Congress, which ends on June 30.
Although it is the same path that the Executive presented last year and that Congress rejected, Arcadi España has reiterated that he is willing to dialogue with all groups to achieve its approval. "I am not going to anticipate or play the fortune teller. So we will continue negotiating with the aim of approving these objectives in the Congress of Deputies, and we will work on it with all parliamentary groups," he stressed.
Regarding the PP, the minister has criticized the vote against by the regional councilors in Monday's meeting, recalling that last year they abstained from the same path. "They will have to explain why. Why they are giving up more than 5,000 million euros for their territories," he reproached them.
Asymmetric objectives and new CPFF
Although a global deficit of 0.1% of GDP has been set for all autonomous communities, Hacienda has shown its willingness to study an asymmetric distribution of the deficit based on the fiscal situation of each territory.
This formula was already applied in 2013, under the responsibility of Cristóbal Montoro, at the height of the financial crisis. "There have already been asymmetric deficits under the People's Party government. The proposal in the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy is not new," the minister recalled.
Therefore, "in an exercise of solidarity between territories," Arcadi España has encouraged the communities to present a proposal for the distribution of the asymmetric deficit and has shown himself willing for the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF) to prepare a draft that will then be sent to all the autonomous communities and subsequently debated in a new Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy (CPFF).
The head of the Treasury has stressed that many communities have closed their accounts with a surplus and "do not need an additional financial cushion," while others, such as Murcia or the Valencian Community, bear a high deficit.
"I believe it is a debate that we must put on the table, that it is not the first, it has already been done, and that seems very positive to me for all the autonomous communities, especially the Valencian Community and Murcia, which are the ones with the worst deficit figures and have a greater need for this oxygen, for this additional fiscal margin, which they could have if others contribute in a solidary way to cede them that margin," he defended.