226.032 million euros: the Spanish government presents the "biggest spending ceiling in history"

MadridAfter announcing the deficit targets for the autonomous communities to the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy, this Tuesday the Council of Ministers ratified them and also approved the spending ceiling for all public administrations. The Minister of Finance, Arcadi España, announced that it will be the "biggest in history": up to 226,032 million, 6.6% more than the previous spending ceiling. "It has no precedent," he remarked, asserting that this will allow for the development of expansionary budgets in terms of the welfare state.

What does the spending ceiling imply? It is a budgetary management mechanism through which, once the State knows what the estimated revenues will be, it sets the maximum possible spending to comply with the stability objective set by the European Union. A figure that is set at 1.8% for 2027. And it is when distributing this deficit margin among administrations that the problem arises. Minister Arcadi España explained, as he already did yesterday at the meeting of the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy, that it will be distributed as follows: 1.5% for the general administration of the State; 0.2% for Social Security; 0.1% for the autonomous communities; and 0% for municipalities. At this point, España said that it is the general administration of the State that makes the "greatest effort" despite having the highest margin, as it has to reduce three tenths compared to the deficit target for 2026 (2.1%). And, he remarked, the 0.1% for the autonomies remains the same as last year.

An interpretation, in any case, that is not shared by the majority of the autonomous communities, governed by the PP, nor by Junts, which requests the possibility for the Generalitat to have a larger deficit margin than the State and has already announced that it would vote no. In fact, the Junts party already rejected the budgetary stability objectives last year because the deficit to be met by the autonomous communities was also 0.1% compared to that of the State administration, which stood at 1.8%.

Failure in Congress

Faced with Junts' 'no', Minister Arcadi España has opted to focus on the PP. "The reasons for the 'no' have to do with partisanship, which is a disease that affects right-wing parties," said España, who regretted that there had been a change of position: last year, in the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy, the PP communities abstained. Furthermore, he also regretted the criticism from the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who insisted this Tuesday that the budgets are just a "vote-buying for independentism". "I find it hard to understand the PP's obsession with Catalonia," he concluded.