Who said fear? Sánchez’s government has already raised the debt by 300 billion euros, which marks a new record high: 1.504 trillion (116% of GDP)

LamanodediosPedro Sánchez

Debt set a new all-time high in September, at 1.504 trillion euros, which represents an increase in relative terms of 0.8% compared to the previous month, reaching 116% of GDP. By administrations, government debt rose in September to 1,329,016 billion euros, 6.8% more than a year ago and 1.15% higher than in the previous quarter, marking an all-time high. For their part, the debt of the autonomous communities fell by 0.3% to 315,015 billion euros compared with the previous month, although it increased by 0.9% compared with the same period last year. In the case of local corporations, their debt fell slightly in September compared with August, with 307 million euros less, to 22.369 billion, while it rose by 0.1% compared with the same month of 2021. Finally, the debt of Social Security administrations stood at 99.192 billion euros in September, practically the same figure as the previous month. That said, the year-on-year growth is 8%, due to the loans granted by the State to the Social Security General Treasury to finance its budgetary imbalance.

Although the ratio of public debt to GDP has been falling in recent months and now stands at 116%, it still slightly exceeds the government’s target for the whole year (115.2%), as established by the Executive in the Stability Plan sent to Brussels at the end of April.

The scenario set out in the 2022-2025 Stability Programme shows a progressive decline in the deficit over the four years until the debt/GDP ratio stands at 109.7% in 2025.

Looking at the figures, since Pedro Sánchez first became president in June 2018 – and after two terms in office – his government has increased Spain’s debt by 301.197 billion euros – the pandemic and the war in Ukraine notwithstanding. That means that, for every day that has passed since then (1,582 days), the coffers have added 190 million to the public hole; and that each Spaniard has taken on 6,350 euros on his or her back; so that each contributing worker has taken on 14,910 euros of new debt since Sánchez has been in charge of the country. So each of the 47 million Spaniards owes 31,709 euros and each contributor 74,458 euros. Moreover, the government has doubled the structural deficit by more than 50 billion euros a year and agreed to exceed the spending ceiling for 2023 by another 15 billion euros, despite requests from Brussels and the ECB to moderate the expansion of the debt.

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