The Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF), meeting for the first time in 17 months, approved this Monday the path of deficit and debt objectives of the autonomous communities for the period 2024-2027 and the resources that will be at their disposal for the 2024 Budgets from the regional financing system. Given the rejection of the Popular Party governments, this necessary procedure was overcome only thanks to the fact that the Government has 51% of the votes in this body. Although the new EU tax rules that are in full negotiation They will still consider next year as a transition exercise, Spanish accounts must now prepare for the return of budgetary discipline for countries overextended in debt and deficit, like Spain, after the exceptional period marked by the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the resurgence of inflation. It is a process that will require adjustments that are much more difficult to address –starting with the rethinking, before the end of the month, of the anti-inflation measures– from this political climate of zero predisposition to agreement.
The debate now remains on the table about what possibilities the majority of the PP in the Senate of block the deficit and debt objectives designed by the Pedro Sánchez Government. According to the legal report presented by the team of the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, if a rejection is maintained in the Upper House, the objectives established in the April stability plan would apply, which would give a narrower spending margin for the autonomous communities than the one proposed yesterday, after the Treasury announced that the communities will have 154,467 million euros from the financing system (an increase of 14.9%).
Facilitate the processing of Budgets and the availability of resources for communities to provide their services It is an objective that should not be subject to the strategy of drawing the investiture agreements as a catastrophic surrender that will condition any possible agreement at least until the next European elections, as proposed by the PP. Nor subject to the need of the pro-independence parties to demonstrate which of them has obtained more substantial concessions. Nor to the absence of gestures of rapprochement on the part of a President of the Government who seems to prefer to build walls.
The letter of the signed pacts provides for a “singular” and bilateral dialogue to achieve sufficient financing and a specific collection system, not a “singular” system of allocating resources for Catalonia, and the forgiveness of part of the debt of all the communities. Neither the negotiations with a view to the 2024 Budget, much less the necessary general reform of the regional financing system or of course the complicated medium-term spending horizon, can be addressed in any other way than by sitting at the table on real bases. And in this sense, the Government’s attitude of not attending the meeting with the most prominent institutional representation, and considering that any political agreement must be reached at a separate table is not a realistic strategy. And yes, a missed opportunity for Minister Mas to explain in Madrid what ERC has been saying in Barcelona, in the sense that improving the financing of Catalonia does not contravene the principles of solidarity.