Sánchez assigns homework to his partners for the new term: approve the Budgets of 2027

As of today, September 7, 2026, the 2027 General State Budgets (PGE) are not yet in the parliamentary processing stage in the strict sense: the Government has not yet registered the Budget Bill in the Congress of Deputies. What has been processed and voted on in the Cortes is the preliminary fiscal framework (stability objectives and deficit path), which has been rejected.

1. Formal situation in the Cortes Generales

In the parliamentary database, linked to the 2027 PGE, appears the “Government Agreement setting the budgetary stability and public debt objectives for the 2027‑2029 period and the non-financial expenditure limit of the State budget for 2027”, processed with the identifiers:

• 430/000009 (process process_ini_581496) in the Congress.
• 430/000010 (process process_ini_586721) in the Congress.

For both files, the parliamentary schedule indicates that:

• Plenary debates were held in the Congress on July 14 and 23, 2026.
• Subsequently, the “rejection text” was published in the Congress Bulletin.
• The final status of the two agreements is that the initiative has been rejected.

That is, the Congress has rejected twice the deficit path and the stability objectives that were to serve as the basis for the 2027 PGE. These files are considered closed, so they are not “in processing” at this time.

However, no “General State Budget Bill for 2027” with its own file number (such as 121/… or similar) is registered. Therefore:

• In the Congress, the amendment period for the Budget Bill has not yet opened.
• There is no committee or subcommittee phase on a budget text.
• There has been no general debate on the 2027 PGE Bill.
• In the Senate, no 2027 PGE project is being processed either, as it has not yet arrived from the Congress.

2. What has been done: preparatory phase in the Government

Within the Executive, several steps prior to sending the Bill have been taken:

• Publication in the BOE of the ministerial order for the preparation of the 2027 Budgets, marking the formal start of internal budget work.
• Approval by the Council of Ministers of the spending ceiling for 2027 (non-financial expenditure limit), described in the press as a “record” figure of 226.032 billion euros.
• Approval and submission to the Cortes of the budgetary stability and public debt objectives for 2027‑2029, whose content is included in the agreements processed as 430/000009 and 430/000010.

According to Demócrata news, both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have reiterated the intention to present the 2027 PGE Bill after the summer of 2026 and try to have it approved before the end of the year. However, as of the reference date, the project has not been registered in the Lower House.

3. Conclusion on the current “phase”

From a strictly parliamentary point of view, the 2027 PGE are still in:

• Pre-parliamentary phase: internal work in the Government, with the spending ceiling already set and the deficit path rejected by the Congress in two successive votes (July 14 and 23, 2026).
• No opening of the formal budget legislative procedure, because the Budget Bill has not yet been submitted to the Cortes Generales.

Therefore, there is currently no specific parliamentary processing phase (general debate, amendments, committee, Plenary or Senate) for the 2027 General State Budgets, since the project has not yet formally started its course in the Chambers. The only items that have reached Parliament and concluded are those related to the preliminary fiscal framework (stability objectives and deficit path), whose last recorded action is the publication of the rejection agreements on July 23 and 30, 2026.

In the Spanish constitutional system, the Prime Minister plays a central role in the preparation and negotiation of the General State Budgets (PGE), combining powers formally provided in the rules with mainly political and leadership functions that are not detailed article by article. It can be said that his influence projects in three main areas: government leadership in the preparation phase, prominence in the approval of the bill in the Council of Ministers, and leadership in parliamentary negotiation and the link between Budgets and political stability.

1. Legal powers and regulatory framework

From a legal point of view, the starting point is the Constitution. It assigns the Government the competence to prepare the budget bill and submit it to the Cortes Generales within a set deadline. The Prime Minister, as head of Government and responsible for its overall action, assumes the political direction of this process.

The Government Law and the organic rules on the organization of the Administration specify that the Prime Minister:

• Directs the Government's action and coordinates the functions of other members, including setting general orientations of economic and budgetary policy.
• Presides over the Council of Ministers that approves the PGE bill before its submission to the Cortes.
• Orders the submission of the bill to the Chambers and, in practice, usually leads its political presentation, although the technical presentations fall to the Minister of Finance.

Formally, the budget text is a Government bill, approved collegially by the Council of Ministers. There is no “exclusive budgetary power” of the Prime Minister, but his hierarchical and leadership position allows him to strongly influence the content of the bill.

2. Relationship with the Ministry of Finance and internal coordination

In the preparation phase, the technical-material competence is concentrated in the Ministry of Finance (and its State Secretariat for Budgets), which sets spending ceilings, issues guidelines, coordinates proposals from different ministries, and drafts the preliminary bill.

The Prime Minister influences this phase in several ways:

• Sets the overall political priorities (for example, emphasis on social spending, investment in ecological transition, deficit reduction, etc.), which Finance must translate into figures.
• Intervenes in resolving conflicts between ministries when spending demands are incompatible with each other or with stability objectives.
• Can promote strategic decisions such as the distribution of fiscal margin among different areas, the configuration of major flagship programs, or the response to European commitments.

All this usually does not appear detailed in laws but is part of the interministerial coordination function inherent to the Prime Ministership.

3. Negotiation with the Cortes Generales

Once the PGE bill is registered in the Congress, the parliamentary phase opens, where the Chamber has broad powers of amendment and approval. Legally, the Government as a whole defends the bill before the Cortes, usually through the Minister of Finance and other sectoral ministers.

However, the Prime Minister plays a key political role:

• Leads the negotiation strategy with parliamentary groups, both allies and potential partners, to secure the necessary majorities.
• May be directly involved in bilateral meetings with key parties, regional governments, or territorial formations whose position is decisive.
• Intervenes in the most relevant plenary debates to set the general political framework of public accounts and reinforce the Government's message.

These negotiation functions are not detailed in parliamentary rules but derive from the fact that the Prime Minister embodies the overall responsibility of the Government before the Cortes.

4. Budgets, Government stability, and confidence matters

The approval of the Budgets is usually associated with the survival of the Government. Although the Constitution does not automatically establish that the rejection of the PGE implies the fall of the Executive, the Prime Minister can:

• Decide to politically link the Budgets to the Government's continuity, presenting them as a vote of confidence in his project.
• Raise a confidence motion around his program or a general policy statement that includes budgetary contents, using the mechanisms provided in the Constitution and the Congress rules.
• Consider the dissolution of the Cortes and calling elections if the absence of viable Budgets blocks Government action.

In this area, powers are partially regulated (for example, in the regulation of confidence motions and dissolution), but the extent to which the Prime Minister decides to use them and how to politically present the link between PGE and stability are political leadership choices, not strict legal obligations.

In sum, the Prime Minister does not technically draft the Budget nor negotiate each amendment, but directs the general orientation, arbitrates internal Government balances, leads the negotiation strategy with the Cortes, and can make the approval of the Budgets the axis of governmental stability.

Ángel Víctor Torres Pérez is a leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), of which he is the leader in the Canary Islands and within which he has developed his entire political career. Since November 2023, he has been Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory in the Government of Spain, following a trajectory that combines local, regional, and national positions.

Political origin and membership

A philologist by training, before fully dedicating himself to politics he was a high school teacher in Arucas (Gran Canaria) until 1999. His political commitment has always been channeled through the PSOE, particularly the PSOE of the Canary Islands, where over time he became its reference figure.

In the party's organizational structure, stakeholder database data show that since September 2017 he has served as Secretary General of PSOE Canarias, a position he currently holds. This responsibility has positioned him as the main socialist reference in the archipelago and given him a decisive role in forming majorities and government pacts in the autonomous community.

Local stage: Mayor of Arucas

His leap to prominent institutional politics occurred at the municipal level. According to information gathered in the general press, he was mayor of Arucas between 2003 and 2007, leading a municipality of just under 40,000 inhabitants in northern Gran Canaria.

From that mayoralty, he consolidated his profile as a close manager and knowledgeable of Canarian reality, which allowed him to project beyond the local sphere. Reports indicate that, in addition to the mayoralty, he served as a deputy in the Congress of Deputies, although consulted sources do not specify the exact years of that stage; in any case, it is an experience that complements his trajectory at the national level.

Regional projection: President of the Canary Islands

Torres's major leap occurred at the regional level. From 2019, he led the so-called “Flower Pact”, a governing majority made up of PSOE, Podemos, Nueva Canarias, and the Socialist Gomera Group, which broke the nationalist hegemony in the regional Executive for the first time. Sources indicate that in 2019 he became the first non-nationalist president of the Canary Islands.

His term as head of the Government of the Canary Islands was marked by a succession of crises with enormous impact on the archipelago: the COVID-19 pandemic, major forest fires, the La Palma volcanic eruption, and the management of episodes of judicially investigated corruption, such as the so-called Mediator case or the Canarian aspect of the so-called Koldo case, which affected mask contracts.

Despite this, as journalistic chronicles and later assessments highlight, his management combined emergency responses with reconstruction and investment policies, especially visible in La Palma, where, already as minister, he has continued to claim the State's investment effort for the island's economic and social recovery after the eruption.

In the 2023 regional elections, the collapse of his coalition partners prevented the progressive majority from being renewed. The agreement between Coalición Canaria and the People's Party displaced him to the opposition, ending his term as regional president but strengthening his national profile within the PSOE.

Leap to the Government of Spain

After that regional stage, Torres made the definitive leap to the national level. According to the stakeholder database, since June 27, 2023 he has been a member of the Permanent Deputation of the Congress, reflecting his presence in national politics. And from November 21, 2023, he has held the portfolio of Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory in Pedro Sánchez's Government.

From that ministry, he has focused his work on two main areas:

• Territorial policy, promoting dialogue with autonomous communities, convening bilateral commissions, and managing competence transfers, which he himself has quantified as more than fifty since Sánchez came to La Moncloa, with a notable reduction in litigation between administrations.
• Democratic memory, with actions such as the establishment of the Democratic Memory Council, the delivery of recognition and reparation declarations to victims of Francoism — for example, to the family of Salvador Puig Antich or to repressed persons in the Valencian Community — and the promotion of memory sites, such as Rafael del Riego's birthplace.

Recent situation and projection

During his time as minister, he has also played a relevant role in migration management, especially regarding unaccompanied migrant minors in the Canary Islands and their redistribution to the Peninsula, as well as coordination with other administrations in emergencies and reconstruction.

On a personal level, in 2025 he made public that he suffers from an operable cancer and announced a temporary break for treatment, emphasizing his willingness to remain active and continue his political work. After the operation, reports indicate that the intervention was successful and that he returned to his responsibilities.

In summary, Ángel Víctor Torres's trajectory is that of a socialist leader who has risen from municipal politics in Arucas to the presidency of the Canary Islands and the Council of Ministers, maintaining a profile closely linked to Canarian reality but with growing influence in territorial politics and democratic memory across Spain.