It’s an intense week for Spain to cross off the list of tasks pending before Brussels. The next 15 is marked on the calendar as the date on which it will have to submit to the European Commission the budgetary plan for the next four years, as well as the draft budget for 2025. The Spanish executive has already announced its intention to respect the deadline. limit for the first of the documents, you risk however receiving a new notice from Brusselssince it does not plan to present the accounts for the next financial year on time.
The starting point for understanding all this whirlwind of documents is the application of the new budgetary rules, which came into force in April but whose official application was set from 2025. It is within this horizon that the countries had to send their structural budget plans for the next four years on September 20. Spain, like the majority of member states, has agreed with the European Commission on an extension. Finally, the implementation horizon of the roadmap for debt and deficit reduction for the next four years was agreed for the October 15, when budgets must also be delivered.
The government’s intentions were thwarted by parliamentary arithmetic. Last week, Economy Minister Carlos Body reiterated his intention to present the structural budget plan on Tuesday. However, he warned of delays in the delivery of next year’s accounts to Brussels. “The European Commission explained that it did not want budget plans without measures”, The head of the Economy justified this delay.
“In a normal environment where we would not have this project by October 15, we would have presented a budget plan without economic policy measures and that will not happen because the European Commission has requested that the plans be presented with economic policy measures.” However, sources from the European Commission clarified to elEconomista.es that it is the governments in place that have been invited to not sending budget extensions, a condition that Spain does not meet.
In any case, the idea of a postponement was not very well received in Brussels. A few hours after Corp’s statements, the Commissioner responsible for the economy, Paolo Gentiloni, clarified that, although the European Commission has always been flexible on deadlines, “There are limits to this flexibility” and urged “not to lose this link between the draft budgets and the structural budget plans”. His message was very clear: the two documents “must be linked and this implies that the level of flexibility of deadlines is limited”.
The Italian clarified a warning which had already been mentioned in the corridors of the community institutions. Present a four-year financial plan without the support of budgets you run the risk of making it a dead letter. A public accounts control plan for the next four years – extendable to seven years in the event of reforms and additional investments being undertaken – can hardly be credible if the Spanish State does not establish a budgetary roadmap for the next year.
In addition, the Community Executive warned Spain last week that the deadline for the presentation of the budget is the 15th. Brussels wants Member States to respect the deadlines set in the months of the last part of the year which seem essential, before the new budgetary rules. begin to apply in 2025, which establish that the levels deficit in relation to GDP and debt on GDP should not exceed 3% and 60% respectively. Although the deadline is not strict, Brussels expects governments to submit their budget plans by October 15 or a few days later.
Planning comes up against deadlines managed by the Government. The difficulty for the government to reach agreements in Congress has made it impossible, until now, to achieve the fiscal trajectory, on which budgets are then worked. The first setback was suffered in July, due to Junts’ refusal. He avoided the second in September because of the unflattering prospect of moving forward on the numbers in Congress.
Regardless, Corps reiterated last week its intention to endorse the figures already presented in July, which set a deficit target of 3% for this year, which would amount to 2.5% next year. A figure which, he assures, would help reduce the debt. The rate, he predicted, would fall to 2.2% in 2026, then to 1.8% in 2027.
