Given the blockage of negotiations with its parliamentary partners (in particular with the JxCat of Carles Puigdemont), the government of Pedro Sanchez refuses to send its 2025 budgetary plan to Brussels on the date required by European budgetary rules: October 15. The Minister of the Economy, Carlos’ bodyconfirmed in Luxembourg that I won’t be able to deliver on time to the European Commission no draft public accounts for next year because he didn’t do his homework on time. Of course, Corps has not yet resigned itself to a budgetary extension scenario and does not rule out being able to have budgets in the weeks or months to come.
The great paradox is that, even if he has no guarantee of having a budget for 2024, Sánchez plans to send the community executive a multi-year adjustment plan for the next four years, another of the obligations established by the new Stability pact. This plan calls for a deficit target of 3% for this year, 2.5% for 2024, 2.2% for 2025 and 1.8% for 2026, as detailed by the Corps.
“Until we have the draft budget on the table, we will not present the budget plan“, explained Body upon his arrival at the Eurogroup meeting which is being held this Monday in Luxembourg. The Minister of the Economy did not wish to set a new deadline, although he indicated as a deadline the end november. “We still have time. The European Commission has until the end of November to carry out an assessment of the medium-term structural budget plans and this is the environment we are operating in,” he said.
[Sánchez no tramitará por falta de mayoría las leyes sobre jornada laboral, vivienda o impuesto a banca y eléctricas]
In the past, Brussels required countries that did not have a draft budget by October 15 (for electoral or other reasons) to send it. a plan with a budget expansion scenario. However, this year the Commission requested that nothing be sent to it due to the large number of documents to review, as budgetary plans overlap with medium-term adjustment plans.
“In a normal environment where For October 15 we do not have this draft general state budgetwe would have presented a budgetary plan without economic policy measures. And this will not happen because the European Commission has asked for plans to be presented with economic policy measures,” said the Minister of Economy. “The presentation of the budget plan is directly linked to the progress we can make in terms of presentation. general budgets of the State”, he insisted.
The Minister of the Economy, Carlos Body, speaks with the President of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, during the Eurogroup this Monday in Luxembourg
As for the medium-term adjustment planCorps explained that at present the government is already shutting down “the latest conversations with the European Commission” and that is why it will be able to arrive on time on October 15. Anyway, there was also a delay here: the initial deadline set by the community executive was September 20, even if only two Member States (Denmark and Malta) have met this requirement In one of his first interventions since his appointment, the new governor of the Bank of Spain, José Luis Escriváasked the Sánchez government for more transparency in the preparation of this structural plan.
European legislation obliges all member states to send to Brussels each year, no later than October 15, a draft budget plan for the following year. Then, the Community Executive carries out a in-depth project assessment in order to determine whether or not it complies with the Stability Pact. Brussels can request additional adjustments or reverse the plan if it deems it incompatible with budgetary rules, which has only happened once with Italy. Until now, The Commission has never sanctioned any country for non-compliance with the delivery deadline.
Despite the delay, Corps assured that “we will present the budgets as they should”, but avoided specifying a precise date.
Mini-coalitions of volunteers
During the Eurogroup this Monday, Corpus presented a Spanish proposal whose objective is speed up decision-making in the EU in all areas related to improving economic competitiveness, and in particular in the implementation of the Capital Markets Union. The Minister of the Economy proposes the creation of mini volunteer coalitions (from 3 countries, with the help of the Commission), which would function as a testing laboratory for this type of initiatives. The pilot project that Spain proposes to launch is the creation of common standards rating for SMEs at the European level.
The Minister of the Economy defends that it is an “innovative mechanism for make integration decisions and do it quickly and efficiently“. The official name of this mechanism is “competitiveness laboratory” and it is expected that this type of integration initiatives will be operational and produce effects “from the first moment”. “The Commission will then carry out an evaluation of these projects and will recommend whether to scale them up or carry them out across the 27 member states,” Corps said.
