The Valencian Government seeks the complicity of other PP autonomies to force the approval of an asymmetric deficit that allows it to meet the expenses foreseen in its budget without exposing itself to sanctions or punishments from the central Government. The asymmetric deficit formula was already approved during Cristóbal Montoro’s time as head of the Ministry of Finance and the Valencian Community was one of its promoters, since he understood that not all autonomies started from the same financial situation.
In the last Fiscal and Financial Policy Council, the possibility of an asymmetric deficit was on the table and the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, left the ball in the court of the autonomies. A situation that bothers the Valencian Government, which understands that it is the Executive that should “assume its responsibility” and approve the asymmetric deficit, as already happened in 2013. Despite this, the Minister of Finance, Ruth Merino, assured yesterday that the Valencian It has already started negotiations with other autonomies to achieve a consensus around this demand and has warned the Government: “They are not going to divide us.”
Merino did not want to reveal the name of the regions with which he has already started conversations to achieve this support for the Valencian demand, but he could not hide that one of them is Murcia, the other autonomy that squared its budget project with a 0 .3% deficit. The greatest difficulty will be to convince other autonomies that do not have the financial problems of the Valencian Community and are more reluctant to this type of differentiated treatments between regions.
Once again, Carlos Mazón will have to put his negotiating skills to good use to forge alliances with the barons and baronesses of his party, beyond the obvious agreement with the Murcian president, Fernando López Miras.
Minister Merino yesterday insisted on the position of the Valencian Government: “We demand the deficit objective of 0.3%, which was the one that was included in the budget, because we believe that it is appropriate, at the very least, to be able to meet the expenses of fundamental services”. And she reiterated the warnings that the head of the Consell has made these days: “We are not going to move, it is the budget that we have presented, it is the one that Valencians need and that is how it will stay.”
In the press conference after the meeting of the Valencian Executive, Merino admitted that the Consell has assessed “all scenarios” regarding the risk of possible sanctions if it approves the budgets with the deficit at 0.3% against the Government. However, the Generalitat trusts in political negotiation to be able to make the deficit objective more flexible.
Regarding debt relief and the bilateral negotiation proposed by the minister, Merino clarified that the Consell will not “give up compensating for the damage of two decades.” Although this proposal that was born in the investiture agreement of PSOE and ERC considers it to be “a patch”, the head of the Treasury admitted that “it can alleviate the payment of interest”, which this year alone shoots up to 900 million euros. “We will sit down and talk to whoever we need,” she added.
When asked by journalists, Merino wanted to make it clear that, although each party that makes up the Consell can vote on a different thing in Les Corts Valencianes, the Consell’s position regarding debt forgiveness and debt relief is the same: “This is Consell unique and we have an action from a great government and we are very clear that what is above all what is the interest of the Valencians. Thus, the criteria of the PP – the majority party in the Government coalition – prevails over that of Vox and the Consell does not plan to give up the forgiveness of the debt accumulated during years of underfinancing.
