The Government has announced to the autonomous communities that 2027 will be the year with the highest funding in the history of the regional system. This was communicated by the Minister of Finance, Arcadi España, during the meeting of the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy (CPFF), where he also outlined the stability path for the period 2027-2029 and opened the door to establishing different deficit targets for each community if the majority of territories so request.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the resources of the regional financing system will grow by more than 8% compared to 2026, driven by the evolution of the economy and employment. Although the definitive figures for the advance payments and the settlement of the 2025 fiscal year will be communicated later, the Executive maintains that the communities will have sufficient funds to prepare their budgets with this forecast.
During the meeting, the minister also advocated for the future reform of the regional financing model, which, according to the Government, would provide an additional 21 billion euros for the communities. Arcadi España also announced that he will convene a new Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy to continue negotiations with the regional governments and to try to advance the parliamentary processing of the new system as soon as possible.
0.1% Deficit for Communities
In terms of budgetary stability, the Ministry of Finance proposes maintaining for the autonomous communities a deficit target of 0.1% of GDP during the fiscal years 2027, 2028, and 2029. According to the Executive, this flexibility will allow regional governments to have 5,849 million euros in fiscal margin over the entire period to finance policies such as healthcare, education, dependency, or housing.
The Government maintains that the General State Administration will bear the greatest burden of fiscal consolidation, progressively reducing its deficit to 1.3% by 2029, while local entities will have to maintain budgetary balance.
Asymmetric Deficits, on the Table
One of the main novelties of the meeting was the announcement that the Ministry will study the implementation of asymmetric deficit targets for the autonomous communities, a demand put forward by some regional governments in recent years.
Arcadi España assured that this possibility will be applied if the majority of the communities request it, although he warned that a greater margin for some autonomies would imply that others would have to assume more demanding stability objectives. The minister also urged the Partido Popular to participate in the negotiation on this proposal.
More resources also for city councils
The Executive also informed the National Commission of Local Administration that city councils will have funding in 2027 at least 10% higher than this year, adding the advance payments and the settlement corresponding to 2025.
Likewise, Hacienda highlighted the measures recently approved to make the spending rule more flexible and allow municipalities to allocate part of their treasury surpluses to financially sustainable investments, including for the first time actions in housing matters.
The minister finally recalled that the stability path must be approved by the Cortes Generales and warned that an eventual parliamentary rejection would mean that the autonomous communities would lose the additional fiscal margin foreseen by the Government.