The PP's veto in the Senate of the budgetary path set by the Government collides with the interests of the communities, the majority in the hands of the Popular Party.

The regional executives will have to return to the more restrictive limit of 0.0% deficit set in April of last year, instead of the 0.1% proposed now.

According to calculations by the Ministry of Finance, Madrid will be the most affected community, with a hole in its accounts for this year of more than 284 million euros, being 277 million for Catalonia or 195 for Andalusia.

While the Valencian Community will lose 137 million.

Sources from the PP leadership allege that the autonomous communities have prepared and approved their regional budgets with enough margin to overcome the tightening of the deficit level.

However, and even if they have that margin, the rejection of the Treasury's fiscal path will irremediably limit the spending of the autonomies.

Despite everything, the autonomies close ranks around Alberto Núñez Feijóo and speak out along the lines set by the national leadership.

Several barons of the PP also appeal to the inequalities that in their opinion generate the current regional financing model, which has expired for more than a decade.

In the cabinet of the Andalusian president, the popular Juan Manuel Moreno, they assure that their budgets were designed to be “quite conservative” in the forecasts for deliveries on account.

Andalusia has a budget of 46.7 billion euros and they estimate that maintaining the spending ceiling will mean a 200 million deficit.

“We are not concerned, we are concerned that we continue to receive 1.4 billion less due to the current financing system and that we have asked that it be compensated with a transitional fund,” explain sources around Moreno.

The president of the Valencian Community, Carlos Mazón, also referred this Wednesday to the debate on the reform of the financing system, to justify

his party's

no .

“We are in the worst financed community in Spain.

I care little what happened in the Senate.

What I am waiting for is some equality in the Government of Spain,” stated Mazón to throw things out, since he has not specified how his Government will deal with this reduction of the deficit.

And he has taken advantage of the situation to charge against the Executive's concessions to Catalonia.

Regarding the rest of the communities, Galicia will lose more than 75 million euros: Castilla y León, 69;

Canary Islands, 53;

Castilla-La Mancha, 50;

Aragón, around 45. The rest of the autonomies, such as Murcia (38 million);

Balearic Islands (38 million);

Asturias (29 million);

Extremadura (24 million);

Cantabria (16 million);

or La Rioja (10 million), will also be affected.

“The rejection of the budget stability objectives of the central government in the Senate is logical, since a new contempt for the autonomous communities cannot be supported,” argue the team of the president of the Region of Murcia, Fernando López Miras.

In other popular cabinets, such as that of the Galician Alfonso Rueda or that of the Extremaduran María Guardiola, they express that, as in Andalusia, their budgets already contemplated the hypothesis of 0.0% as a deficit limit.

So you won't have to design new accounts.

Criticism of the PSOE

Faced with the balances of the communities governed by the PP so as not to question the strategy of the national leadership of the party, that is, Feijóo, those of the PSOE have harshly criticized the rejection of the objectives of budgetary stability and public debt and the Government Rebalancing Plan.

“I will remind the PP of Castilla-La Mancha every time they tell us that we have to invest more and do more things.

I will have to remind you who is preventing it,” the regional president Emiliano García-Page has been blunt.

Its Executive has budgeted 22.5 million euros annually for a bank of free school books in compulsory education (primary and secondary) that will begin to operate next year: the Government of Castilla-La Mancha estimates that it could benefit 225,000 students, with savings close to 200 euros per student.

The first vice president and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, in the Senate, this Wednesday. SERGIO PEREZ (EFE)

“They therefore vote against the interests of the autonomous communities, even those they govern.

It is an absolutely useless act of blocking, but it does a lot of damage to Asturias, especially when the budget has already been approved.

It is absolute irresponsibility,” Asturias reacted through Guillermo Peláez, Minister of the Treasury and European Funds.

“Despite the multiple warnings we gave, the PP has carried out its threat.

This means depriving Asturias of 29 million euros.

To give us an idea, the extension of the network of schools from 0 to 3 years old and their free starting in September will be 31.5 million,” added the advisor of the Government of Adrián Barbón, giving that example.

Navarra, as it does not appear among the common regime communities, is not affected but regrets the “political message”, sources from the Government chaired by María Chivite highlight, which implies the vote of the PP in the upper house.

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I am already a subscriber

_