“Not even the ministerial order to start preparing the Budgets has been given,” warned Cristina Herrero, president of the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF), highlighting the lack of reliable deficit and debt forecasts for next year, as well as non-financial expenditure.
“None of the necessary milestones for the Budgets that should already be underway have been met at this time,” Herrero warned, with the added uncertainty of defense spending and the impact of Trump’s tariffs. Because at this point in the year, no one knows how defense spending will impact state accounts, neither with the new Security and Defense Plan presented with a €10.471 billion increase, nor with data from previous years…
The Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF) has raised the alarm about the impossibility of accurately estimating an expenditure that will be 2.1% of GDP, which should be included in the State’s Economic and Financial Plan, and which is structured with an inter-ministerial budgetary technique that makes its monitoring impossible.
This handicap in evaluating whether Spain complies with national and European spending rules is joined, in the words of AIReF president Cristina Herrero, by the paralysis of the Treasury in beginning the preparation of the State Budgets for 2026.
In its supervisory report on state accounts, AIReF has estimated a public administration spending deviation of up to 4.6% in the Spanish case in 2025, above the national limit of 3.7% set for this year, although it is within what the EU allows.
The State and 13 autonomous communities are failing to meet their spending targets and must present alternative economic and financial plans. An adjustment of €11 billion is estimated to comply with this year’s rules.
