The Government is reactivating the transfer of the economic and financial management of pensions to the Basque Country, a demand of Euskadi for more than four decades. The transfer of social security to this region (and to any other) would imply the effective rupture of the fundamental principles of solidarity between territories based on a single fund that deposits social contributions and pays public pensions regardless of the territory, as well as a redistribution of benefits and imbalances in the system. This is why it will imply changes to the Constitution.
The government, in this situation, admits that it will be a difficult process. The legislative field opposes its plan to transfer pensions to this Community. The modification of the General Law of Social Security and the Constitution is considered necessary, since it is currently established that the economic management of pensions and social contributions is regulated at the State level.
There is a Constitutional Court decision (1996) which protects the powers of the State in matters of pensions and on which the lawyers of social security rely, who have established the following: the State must reserve as exclusive competence not only the legal regulation in matters of social security, but all the powers of management and execution which guarantee the effective application of unitary and unified criteria throughout the national territory, with reference to the acts of constitution, liquidation and collection of resources and recognition and payment of benefits.
There is a condition which is already happening in some regions, and constitutes the administration of non-contributory benefitssuch as the minimum vital income (IMV), since the competence in matters of assistance is in the hands of the autonomous communities.
The Professional Association of the Higher Body of Lawyers of the Social Security Administration emphasizes that this unity and equality are guaranteed through the principles of a single fund and financial solidarity, which imply not only the ownership and exclusive competence of the State in the management of the economic and financial resources of the system, but also on the recognition and payment of benefits, “whose management criteria must be unique and uniform throughout the territory.”
Other experts consulted point out that the dissolution of the Single Treasury Fund would imply important legislative changes and that the favour granted to the Basques could even be unconstitutional. Before moving on to the next step, the government is waiting for technical reports that imply the support of the Social Security portfolio led by the Navarrese Elma Saiz, as well as the Treasury Department, led by Vice President María Jesús Montero. This ministry always holds the key to any economic reform.
Sources from the Social Security team ruled out last November that the agreement with the PNV represented a break in the single fund and stressed that this very important detail of the PSOE and PNV agreement already appears as an autonomous competence in nine other Statutes of Autonomy, apart from that of Guernica: Navarre, Catalonia, Valencian Community, Balearic Islands, Aragon, Galicia, Andalusia, Extremadura and Canary Islands.
The Social Security deficit in the Basque Country was around 4 billion euros in 2022, according to Fedea. The cost of transfers from the State to the Administration is a State service that “does not seem” to be included in the Basque quota, frozen for decades and which does not cover the pension deficit. Euskadi should double its contribution (1,682 million euros) to the regional share of services provided by the State as the pension deficit is diluted.
