The State seeks to satisfy communities with record resources

MadridThe autonomous communities and local governments will have record resources to prepare their 2026 budgets. This Tuesday's Council of Ministers updated the advance payments for both administrations, as announced by First Vice President and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, in an interview with RNE on Monday morning. Alegría, at a press conference this Tuesday.

First of all, it's worth remembering that advance payments are the resources that the State transfers in advance to the autonomous communities and local governments depending on the administrations' tax collection forecasts. Currently, those for 2023 are still in effect. They represent the bulk of the resources available to the regions to prepare their budgets and cover basic services, and are updated each year according to economic growth forecasts, but especially tax revenues, which have performed well in recent years.

The autonomous communities will receive a record €147.412 billion from advance payments. This amount must be added to the positive settlement for 2023, which means the State anticipated less revenue from the communities, but ultimately did not, resulting in €11.692 billion. Municipalities will receive €28.734 billion.

Catalonia is entitled to a total of 28.255 billion euros from advance payments (10.2% more) and 2.727 billion euros from the positive settlement of 2023. In total, therefore, 30.857 billion euros, 3.4% more than in 2023 ~B to be able to count on the support of Congress and also of the opposition," said Alegría. The update of the resources is included in a Royal Decree-Law that must be approved by the Spanish lower house. But the Treasury's proposal comes at a time of maximum tension between the PP and the Spanish government due to the Cerdán case. Likewise, although updating the resources is a breath of fresh air for the autonomous communities and city councils, the transfer comes after a conference of presidents in which the give and take between the autonomous governments, the majority of the PP, and the executive of Pedro Sánchez became evident.

A A priori, the review of these resources was expected to be lower due to the lack of budgets in the State (those for 2023 remain postponed due to the Spanish government's difficulty in reaching an agreement with the investiture partners).