Madrid, July 29 (EFE)
Whether with a government invested after the summer after a long negotiation or with electoral repetition, everything seems to indicate that it will be necessary to extend the 2023 accounts for at least a few months, since it is practically impossible for there to be a budget project in Congress before October as required by law.
Traditionally, it is assumed that the Budgets are the most important law of the year -the rejection of those of 2019 led to the calling of elections-, since they constitute the framework of the Government’s economic policy, defining everything from investments to taxation or pensions .
In the case of the 2024 accounts, two additional factors must be added: they are the legal instrument where allocations for European fund projects should be collected and they affect the first year of the new European fiscal rules, which are still pending approval. .
OUT OF TIME
Regardless of when the government is formed or if there is an electoral repetition, the eventual Budgets for 2024 would already be out of date, since the calendar indicates that the previous work begins in July.
Had it not been for the elections, the spending ceiling and deficit path would have been approved in July, which in turn would have required the convening of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF) and the National Commission of Local Administrations ( CNAL) to communicate your deficit references.
The calendar indicates that before the end of September the Government has to approve the bill and take it to the Cortes -something that seems impossible when the previous work has not yet begun-, where the processing usually takes around three months.
REVALUATION OF GUARANTEED PENSIONS
The country never runs out of current Budgets, since if there are no new approved accounts, those of the previous year are automatically extended, normally accompanied by a decree with the necessary adjustments to guarantee their proper functioning and, even, to adopt some measures.
Thus, even if there are no 2024 budgets, pensions will be revalued with the CPI because this is included in its reform and the increase in the salary of public employees agreed with the unions could also be approved by decree, as happened in the 2019 financial year.
More complex is the articulation of the European funds and, above all, of the new European fiscal rules, which point to a completely new way of monitoring the fiscal stability of the countries and that Spain will face without reference to a deficit.
NINTH BUDGETARY EXTENSION
The almost inevitable extension of the 2023 Budget will be the ninth of democracy, after those of 1978, 1982, 1995, 2011, 2016, 2017 and the two of the 2018 accounts, the only ones with a double extension.
The 2017 accounts entered into force in June and those of 2018, in July, after passing an unprecedented process that included the change of government as a result of Pedro Sánchez’s motion of no confidence against Mariano Rajoy.
The 2018 accounts became the longest-lived in democracy (they were in force until the end of 2020), since the 2019 Budgets were rejected by Congress and the 2020 Budgets were never presented – the Government was in office until January of that year and shortly after the pandemic broke out.
Once the hardest part of the pandemic was over, the budgets have achieved some stability: those for 2021, 2022 and 2023 entered into force on January 1, although all of them arrived in Congress a few days late, already in October. EFE
mpca/ltm
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