This Tuesday, the government of Imanol Pradales offered the first indicative figure of what the transfer of the management of the economic regime of Social Security to the Basque Country could entail. It aims to manage the “12 billion” – in the literal terms of the councilor-spokesperson, María Ubarretxena – which represent the annual cost of paying pensions and allowances in Alava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa. In addition, to this should be added 6.24% of the current total expenditure of the State on civil servants, buildings and other expenses, as in any transfer of powers. The Executive has already been preparing “since July”, that is, since it took office, a first proposal to send to the government of Pedro Sánchez before the end of the year and with the aim of reaching an agreement in 2025.
12 billion is not a small figure. The total regional budget is 15,000 euros in 2024 and the portfolio with the most economic weight, Health, is around 5,000 million euros in planned annual expenditure. Currently, the Basque Employment Service (Lanbide) has an allocation of around 1,200 million, or 10% of what Social Security would mean.
The transfer of the management of Social Security is the most important of the thirty pending issues of the 1979 Statute. In addition, Pradales added the willingness to also manage passive employment policies (unemployment benefits) and FOGASA, after meeting with the president last Friday. La Moncloa. This is an issue never before transferred to any autonomous community and that in the past has been strongly questioned by unions and left-wing parties also because Social Security is a unique fund differentiated from budgets and with solidarity components between generations and territories. Euskadi, for example, is in deficit, which implies that its current contribution to the contribution model is lower than what Basque pensioners receive.
In essence, the Statute provides that Euskadi is the cashier, as is already the case for the Minimum Living Income (IMV). In other words, it does not regulate pensions or have its own piggy bank, but it manages the system in the autonomous community. Ubarretxena wanted to appear at a press conference accompanied by a copy of the 1979 text, which expressly provides that the transfer will be made in agreement with the State and without breaking the principles of interterritorial solidarity. “Within this framework, we will make the proposal,” stressed the councillor, who is also directly responsible for the Governance, Digital Administration and Autonomy portfolio.
In 2022, the PNV saw in the transfer of the IMV a clear precedent for Social Security. The Basque Government was then authorized to assume payment, intervention or control functions, while the State retained the “basic legislation” and the “guarantee of unity” of the system, as explained. Since then, Lanbide has managed this matter with complete normality. In 2023, the nationalists have committed since Sánchez to close in 2025 all the powers that have been pending since 1979, including the economic management of Social Security. This is the same timetable that the Pradales government is clinging to.
Next week, Ubarretxena will continue negotiations with the Secretary of State for Territorial Policy, Arcadi España, in a preparatory meeting for what will be the first bilateral political commission agreed by Pradales and Sánchez for the end of October. This promotion and negotiation forum will meet at least once every six months, in the presence of both presidents, Ubarretxena recalled. Of course, each of the transfers, as established by law, will be officially closed in its corresponding joint commission. The objective of the Basque Executive is that before the end of 2024, the transfers of coastal management, maritime rescue and four other matters can be closed. At the same time, Ubarretxena’s team will send all its proposals to Madrid for the rest of the transfers.
It turns out that in the coalition agreement in Euskadi between the PNV and the PSE-EE, the management of Social Security would fall to the socialist portfolios. Specifically, the councilor responsible would be Mikel Torres, responsible for the economy, labor and employment, which also includes the IMV. In an interview with this newspaper this summer, the vice-president was very cautious about a possible transfer. He said that it would be something “complicated”, even “very complicated”. “Among the pending transfers, this is the most complicated, it is obvious and logical,” he noted.
