The 2023 State General Budget (PGE) was automatically extended for the third time this January 1st. This occurs while Pedro Sánchez’s government prepares to present and attempt to pass new public accounts for the 2026 fiscal year in Parliament during the first half of the year—an outcome that, at this stage, appears unlikely. During the final Cabinet meeting of 2025, the Government approved an agreement establishing the application criteria for…
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…
“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…
Pedro Sánchez announced yesterday that Spain will increase its military spending by €10 billion this year, although only 20% of that figure will be allocated to the purchase of equipment and materials, while 35% will go to raising the salaries of the military. With this increase, Spanish spending on security and defense will reach 2% of GDP this year, totaling more than €33 billion. Sánchez thus contradicts himself, once again,…
Spain, Belgium, and Austria are the only eurozone countries that have not yet submitted their accounts for next year. However, Spain is the only one of the three countries that does not have a caretaker government and cannot blame the delay on an electoral call. Countries were required to submit their budget plans to the European Commission by October 15. In a joint statement, the finance ministers of the eurozone…
The Government was planning to put to a vote the same budget spending ceiling that sank in July this Thursday in the Congress of Deputies, but anticipating the same result, it has decided to rectify. The Government withdrew yesterday from the agenda the vote on the stability path, thus avoiding chaining another parliamentary setback and making another defeat visible in the chamber. “There is room for negotiation,” they explain in…
The former president of the Generalitat and leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, has warned the Government this Thursday that his party will again vote against the budget stability path. He has done so in response to a publication in the social network X in which a news item was linked to statements by the first vice-president of the Government and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, who said that they…
The weakness of the Catalan government, with ERC in a minority, has led to a new early election in the autonomous community, set yesterday for May 12 by the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, after the Parliament rejected the draft budget of the Generalitat for 2024. The new date with the polls will be marked by the aftermath of the procés, as Junts will try to ensure that its…
Bankinter| The Council of Ministers on Tuesday approved the non-financial state spending ceiling for 2024 at €199.12 billion (0.5% higher than in 2023). The spending ceiling includes an advance of €9,905 million from the NGEU funds. Excluding European funds, this would amount to €189.215 billion (up 9.3% year-on-year). In addition, the joint general government deficit of 3% in 2024, 2.7% in 2025 and 2.5% in 2026 was approved. Assessment: The…
Fernando González Urbaneja | No surprise, the Budgets 2023 presented give everything the government has to offer; coherent with what has been presented so far in the legislature; no more (and no less). Expansionary and electoral budgets. As always, and even more so, since the aim is to win the elections themselves. And this is done with optimism, with generous distribution of benefits, without concern for deficit and debt. No…