The Spanish government has held its last plenary session of the year in Congress –The first one with José Luis Ábalos suspended as a deputyBittersweet, but without major surprises. On the one hand, the government again lost the vote on the stability plan (deficit and debt targets), something that was already expected. But on the other hand, it managed to pass a series of social measures: aid for those affected by the La Palma volcano, the increase in civil servants' salaries, and the processing of the reform of the law on the rights of people with disabilities and the reform of the dependency law. Added to this are the so-called Junts decrees, with the demands of Carles Puigdemont's party, which the PSOE unblocked in an attempt to rebuild the relationship, and which also passed. The Spanish government is viewing the plenary session's outcome with enthusiasm: "There's a lot of noise, but we managed to pass the votes," government sources say. However, Pedro Sánchez opted for remote voting this Thursday and did not attend what was the last session of 2025 in Congress. where the topic of conversation has been the latest arrests due to suspicions of corruption surrounding the Spanish government and the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party)..

Between January and February of next year. This is the timeframe set by the First Vice President and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, to present the new regional financing model. For the first time, Montero has committed to a specific date, doing so after a Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF) meeting in which she outlined the key features of the future system. This model is still being negotiated with the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and the Catalan government (Generalitat). This is, in fact, the main reason why Montero postponed the CPFF meeting scheduled for this Monday.

After months of public and private pressure, the Catalan government has obtained a flexibilisation of regional governments' reference deficit rate for 2023. As ARA has been able to confirm with sources from the Spanish and Catalan executives, this limit, which was to be 0.1% in 2023, will finally be 0.3% of GDP. All regions will benefit, and in the case of Catalonia this means around €500m (some sources in the Generalitat say €470m, while others put it at €525m).