This Thursday, Congress rejected the stability path (which includes deficit limits for Public Administrations) proposed by the Government until 2028. This defeat was expected in Moncloa (the seat of government). However, it casts bad omens over the future of the General State Budgets (PGE), turning them, in fact—as El Español points out—into a chimera.
Junts, the parliamentary group of the fugitive Puigdemont, followed through on its threat after breaking with the PSOE a few weeks ago and vetoed the fiscal path proposed by the Government. The independentist party is expected to maintain this stance for the Budget bill when it reaches the Lower House.
To these dissenting votes, we must add one lost vote: that of José Luis Ábalos. The former right-hand man of Pedro Sánchez, who is under investigation for serious corruption crimes, had been voting in favor of the laws and regulations presented by the Socialists despite being in the Mixed Group (Grupo Mixto) after being expelled from the PSOE. Yesterday, this was impossible because, at that very hour, the judge ordered his entrance into prison due to an “extreme risk” of flight.
In this way, the majority of the deputies in the Lower House (formed by the PP, Vox, Junts, and UPN) rejected the deficit limits proposed by the Government. This was a vote in which Podemos and Compromís—who backed Sánchez in his investiture—abstained, with only the PSOE, Sumar, ERC, Bildu, PNV, BNG, and CC voting in favor.
The Budgetary Stability Law obliges the Executive to present the stability path again in less than a month. The Ministry of Finance has already stated that it has no intention of changing its proposal (which includes a 0.1% deficit target for the autonomous communities), and a new rejection by Congress is taken for granted. Despite this, the Government will proceed with the 2026 Budgets (something it did not do with the 2025 ones), which also appear doomed to fail.
The Sánchez Government has not managed to pass a budget since 2022, when it approved the one corresponding to 2023, the year the previous legislature ended.
