Yesterday in the Senate, the PP forced the partial blocking of the 2024 Budget by overturning, thanks to its absolute majority, the path of stability for this year and the next two that was first approved by the Council of Ministers and which later passed the Congress process. of the Deputies. The Government will now have to raise the deficit objectives again. Treasury sources reported that they are inclined to present the same ones that were rejected (a deficit of 3% of GDP at the end of the year; 2.7% in 2025 and 2.5% in 2027) and that the Government will proceed to this procedure “soon”.
The path of stability was rejected in the plenary session of the Upper House with 147 votes against PP and Vox and 113 in favor of PSOE, Compromís, Geroa Bai, PNV, Junts, ERC, Bildu, BNG, CC and AHI. The president of the Senate, Pedro Rollán, stated at the end of the vote that “if the Congress or the Senate reject the objectives, the Government, within a maximum period of one month, will submit a new agreement that will be subject to the same procedure.”
The PP justified its vote against by defending that “Spanish people do not want more increases in taxes, social contributions, debt and superfluous expenses,” according to Senator Gerardo Camps. The economic spokesman for Genoa, Juan Bravo, asked the Government last Monday for a reduction in VAT on electricity, gas, meat, fish and canned goods, among other measures, to change his position.
The first vice president and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, accused the opposition of having no sense of State by voting negatively. “The PP has once again demonstrated its lack of sense of State and has voted against stability objectives that offer greater fiscal margin to autonomous communities and city councils,” she wrote on social networks.
If Congress approves the second deficit objectives again and the Senate rejects them again, the Government uses a report from the State Attorney’s Office to defend that those sent to the European Commission in April will come into force, which would require the autonomous communities to cut this year’s budgets by 0.1%.
Indeed, the Budget Plan sent to Brussels in April contemplated that the autonomies could present their public accounts for 2024 with a deficit of 0.1%, instead of the budget balance proposed in spring. City councils, for their part, would have to adapt to two tenths of a surplus instead of balance.
The public debt planned by the Government for the end of 2024 would be 106.3% of GDP, 105.4% in 2025 and 104.4% in 2026. These limits will also have to be updated or maintain.
The Government has already approved in the Council of Ministers, along with the path of stability, the spending ceiling or non-financial spending limit for 2024. The Ministry of Finance raised a record figure: 199,120 million, 0.5% more than in 2023. This issue should not be put to a vote in the Cortes Generales.
