This Thursday, September 26, the Plenary of Congress, will debate and vote on the budgetary stability and public debt objectives for the administrations for the next three years, with the Government lacking sufficient support to overcome its parliamentary processing.
Thus, the path will return to the Lower House two months after being rejected by the votes against from the PP, Vox, UPN, and Junts. Now, the Lower House will once again pronounce on the same deficit path and budgetary objectives, which serve as a preliminary milestone for the preparation of the General State Budgets (PGE) for 2025.
The economic spokesperson for the PP, Juan Bravo, has already indicated that his party will vote against the path because it is the same as in July; meanwhile, those of Carles Puigdemont maintain their vote from July and come to this vote after having allied their votes with the PP and Vox to defeat a legislative proposal by Sumar and other left-wing partners to regulate seasonal rentals.
This will be the fourth time Congress debates stability objectives this year. The Government presented those related to the 2024 Budgets twice, but those accounts were not processed due to the early election in Catalonia, and the budgets from 2023 remain in effect, having been automatically extended on January 1.
In those two instances, Congress did not serve as an obstacle, and the objectives passed through the Lower House. However, the PP’s absolute majority in the Senate rejected the path both times. This forced the Ministry of Finance to resort to a report from the State Attorney General to circumvent the veto of the Upper House and draft the Budgets with the objectives that the Executive submitted to the European Commission in April 2023 as part of the Stability Program.
In fact, those objectives sent to Brussels are the Government’s ‘Plan B’ to continue with budgetary processing if the Cortes do not support the stability objectives, which establish a public deficit of 2.5% in 2025, 2.1% in 2026, and 1.8% in 2027, and reduce public debt below 100% by the end of the period.
