The Government presents today a budget of 50,000 million euros without the support of ERC

BarcelonaThe Government will approve this morning the budget bill for 2026. It will be the first accounts presented by the government of Salvador Illa and will reach almost 50,000 euros, with an increase in spending of 9,100 million compared to the figures for 2023, the last approved. The accounts will be validated in an extraordinary executive council, which will start at 9:30 am, and subsequently the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, will deliver them to Parliament.

President Illa has decided to present the budgets, which will begin the process in the Catalan chamber, even though ERC currently maintains its veto on negotiating them, which would condemn the figures to failure. Pending movements in the IRPF collection folder, a condition of the republicans to endorse the figures, the Government trusts that there is still room to add Oriol Junqueras's support to the understanding it has already reached with the commons as well as with unions and employers' associations.

The coming weeks will be key, as the plenary session where the budget law will be voted on will finally be the week of March 18 – it was initially scheduled for the week of March 9. Socialists and republicans have agreed to extend the period for submitting total amendments to gain time in negotiations. Esquerra takes for granted, for now, that it will submit a total amendment if it does not see any gesture from the Spanish government regarding IRPF. If the disagreement were to materialize, all of this could lead to a new budget extension. According to sources from the Economy department, and as ARA advanced this week, there are about 1,500 million euros at stake. These are the resources planned for new projects that would be left out of the extension.

All this, while Catalonia's fiscal deficit remains above 21 billion euros. As ARA advanced this Thursday, Catalonia contributed 77,742 million euros to the state coffers during 2022 (19.3% of the total from the autonomous communities) and received 56,650 euros (14% of the total). In other words, Catalonia's fiscal deficit was 21,092 million.

These are the data from the latest fiscal balances calculated by the Generalitat that will be made public this Friday as soon as the Government approves the budget bill for 2026. Catalonia's fiscal deficit stood at 8.2% of GDP, more or less the average since 1986 (8.1%). Each Catalan therefore contributed 2,670 euros more than they received.