The Minister of Finance, Arcadi España, has assured that the Council of Ministers will approve this Tuesday the limit of non-financial spending—known as the spending ceiling—and the budgetary stability objectives, to subsequently send both agreements to the General Courts for debate and voting.
In the press conference following the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy (CPFF), the head of Finance explained the budgetary stability path that the Government has communicated today to the autonomous communities and which has been approved, despite the rejection of the Popular Party councilors.
According to the Executive's proposal, the deficit of all Public Administrations will stand at 1.8% of GDP next year. Of this figure, the Central Administration will assume the largest part, 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 specified that the largest part of the 1.5% deficit target for 2027 for the Central Administration (1.2%) is due to transfers to Social Security, as set out in the Pact of Toledo, for an amount close to 23 billion euros.
Furthermore, he indicated that another tenth of the Central Administration's deficit in 2027 is due to the new tax on financial entities, the collection of which will correspond to the State in 2026 and will be distributed in 2027 among the autonomous communities.
"Therefore, there is no room for criticism that the largest part of the deficit falls on the General State Administration, but rather that it is also shared equally with the autonomous communities," defended Arcadi España.
In today's session, the public debt objectives for the autonomous communities were also set, which will stand at 18.9% in 2027, 18.3% in 2028, and 17.7% in 2029.
The Government's forecast is that the Congress of Deputies will put the budgetary stability objectives and the deficit distribution among the different public administrations to a vote in the Plenary session on July 14.
If the Lower House rejects them on that day, as has already happened at other times during the legislature, a second vote is contemplated in another Plenary session on July 23. Both the 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 was rejected by Congress, Arcadi España has stressed that he will again dialogue with all parties to try to move it forward. "I am not going to advance or play the fortune teller. So we are going to 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 criticized the vote against by their regional councilors in Monday's CPFF, despite the fact that last year they abstained from the same proposal. "They will have to explain why. Why they renounce more than 5,000 million euros for their territories," he reproached them.
Asymmetric deficit and new CPFF
Although a deficit of 0.1% of GDP has been set for all autonomous communities, Hacienda has shown willingness to study an asymmetric distribution of the deficit based on the financial situation of each territory.
This formula was already applied in 2013 under the responsibility of Cristóbal Montoro, in the midst of the financial crisis. "There have already been asymmetric deficits governing the Popular Party. The proposal in the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council is not new," the minister recalled.
Therefore, "in an exercise of solidarity between territories," Arcadi España has proposed that the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF) prepare a draft that will subsequently be sent to all autonomous communities and discussed in a new Fiscal and Financial Policy Council.
The head of Hacienda has indicated that numerous communities have closed their accounts with a surplus, so "they do not need an additional financial cushion," while others, such as Murcia or the Valencian Community, present a larger deficit.
"I believe it is a debate that we have to put on the table, which is not the first, it has already been done, and which seems very positive for all autonomous communities, especially the Valencian Community and Murcia, which are the ones with the worst deficit figures and have more need for this oxygen, this additional fiscal margin, which they could have if others contribute in solidarity to cede that margin to them," he defended.
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