The CCAA and the City Councils will have to apply an adjustment of 11,550 million euros until 2026, if the Government fails to promote the path of stability on which it will try to base the budget project for 2025. Moncloa begins its second and final attempt to promote the Accounts and approves the record spending ceiling – of 199,171 million euros – that it had already approved in July, as well as the same budgetary roadmap that it failed to advance after meeting the vote against – by surprise – of Junts in the Congress of Deputies. “If the Popular Party and other groups vote against this path and it is rejected, They will force the CCAA to make an adjustment of 6.7 billion euros and 4.850 million to the Town Halls.“, warned the first vice-president, María Jesús Montero, who explained that if the new path does not obtain the approval of the Parliament, it will build the Accounts on the previous objectives, which are stricter for the regions and local entities.
The intention of the Executive is to grant a greater fiscal margin to the autonomous communities. The current trajectory obliges the regions to achieve a balanced budget in 2024, and to achieve a surplus of 0.1% in the following two years. The plan revalidated today would allow the regional governments to register a deficit of 0.1% until 2027. “The Government will present the Budgets, either with the trajectory approved today or with the current trajectory,” insisted Montero, who recalled that the previous roadmap will oblige the Administrations to redo their Accounts with more demanding figures.
Sánchez thus enters the parliamentary arena, without having the necessary support to unblock the legislative paralysis. The president does not have the guarantee of a sufficient number – not even – to approve the budgetary trajectory. Minister Montero tried to transfer the pressure to those of Núñez Feijóo, and recalled that her regional barons abstained in the first vote on the path to stability that took place at the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF) held on July 15. “The PP rejected and contradicted the vote of the regions where it governs, leaving on paper the multilateral agreement that it demands so much,” he assured.
The Lower House must vote next week on the budget trajectory. It will be a long time before the Treasury presents its draft Budget. The minister did not want to anticipate a specific date, although it is likely that Montero will go to Congress with the Accounts under his arm. early next October. As the head of the Treasury admitted, she continues to discuss with Sumar the content of the project, which she then plans to negotiate with the rest of the parliamentary groups. “I am going to this presentation of the Budgets with all my morale in high spirits,” the vice-president confided.
Despite what the first vice-president defends, everything will depend on Junts. The citizens of Puigdemont hold the key to all the initiatives that the Government wants to promote in the Congress of Deputies. Since July 23, the formation has not stopped taking a step back, distancing itself from the investiture bloc and setting a battery of conditions in exchange for its punctual support. postconvergent They are demanding the Brussels agreement – which they signed in exchange for Sánchez’s presidency – and which demands, among other things, measures to force the return of companies that left Catalonia during the processThey also demand to increase the State’s investment in the Catalan Cercanías network and to adapt the level of budget execution to that of Madrid.
Beyond what Congress decides, the forecasts do not support compliance with commitments. AIReF predicts that the autonomous communities will close the year with a larger budget gap than expected. The organization estimates that the State will be forced to undertake an extraordinary adjustment of 3 billion dollars in 2024 alone due to the indiscipline of the regional executives, who will close – according to estimates – with a deficit of 0.3% this year.
