The Basque Executive approved this Tuesday at the Government Council the draft budget of the autonomous community for 2025 which, as the Lendakari, Imanol Pradales, proposed yesterday, proposes an expenditure of 15,728 million euros (4.7 % more than the previous year). As explained by the Minister of the Treasury, Noël D’Anjou, in the section of other income, he envisages 119 million euros that the tax will contribute to banking and energy companies – the same amount as in 2024 – while stating that it does not seem “a suitable figure” to them.
Since the possibility of making this rate permanent in 2022 entered the agenda, the part of the Basque Government led by the PNV and important figures of the party have been at odds with the central government. They understand that it should be another tax, incorporated into the economic agreement that the autonomous community benefits from, so that it can be managed by the regional executive itself. However, while negotiations are on hold due to the lack of support from Pedro Sánchez’s government, they are incorporating it into regional budget projections for next year.
According to the documentation presented today, revenues are set at 15,728 million euros. Among them, the majority comes from the provincial areas of Vizcaya, Alava and Gipuzkoa (13.2 billion), which, thanks to the fiscal specificity of the Basque Country, collect their own taxes. Then there is the “other income” section, which includes taxes and would insert the part derived from those applied to the extraordinary profits of banking and energy companies.
“The levies themselves are not taxes. They were created as non-tax land benefits. “It doesn’t seem appropriate to us,” D’Anjou said, when asked about complaints from banking institutions about the risk that the measure would harm their ability to extend credit. “I don’t know if it could be harmful or not,” said the councilor during a long press conference in Vitoria during which he explained the broad outlines of the budget project.
This will be recorded next Thursday in the Basque Parliament, after which the Executive will open a round of negotiations with the different formations that, in their opinion, are democratic in search of its approval.
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