The temptation is there. At the moment when the budgets of the Generalitat were to be presented, Junts per Catalunya has left the Government and, as a result, the Minister of Economy, Jaume Giró, leaves his position and the budgets he was preparing are left in the middle road The new Minister of Economy and Finance, Natàlia Mas, is therefore now faced with a difficult challenge: draw up new budgets (this is the easy part: there is time to do them) and find parliamentary support to approve -the bear. This is where the matter gets complicated.
Finding parties to vote on the 2023 accounts shouldn’t be particularly difficult. If Junts does not want, the PSC and the commons could support it. The problem is that the readings that can be made of these alliances, added to the proximity of the municipal elections, lead the Government to the simplest path: not to approve budgets and console themselves with extending those for 2022. In fact, this boss of the week the councilor of the presidency, Laura Vilagrà, and the president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, have opened the door to the budget extension. This is, yes, the easiest way, but also the worst for the country.
The Generalitat has a spending ceiling of 33.1 billion euros for next year, 13% more than this year. This means that it will be able to spend another 3.8 billion euros, a considerable increase. By approving some budgets, it is possible to decide how this increase is distributed: which public works to promote, which services to improve, etc. This is why budgets are so important, and also for this reason their absence is a sign of institutional poverty. Accounts mark the lines of a government.
The Generalitat has 3,800 million more to spend in 2023, but if the budget is extended, everything gets complicated
Extending budgets, on the other hand, complicates everything. Yes, specific items of expenditure can be increased, but Parliament must vote on a case-by-case basis, and they tend to be “politically correct issues that elicit a lot of consensus”, explains economist Albert Carreras, who as secretary of Economy of the Generalitat between 2011 and 2016 had to extend it. For example: increasing the salaries of some division of the administration or specific grants for a group. But these are autopilot decisions, not policies that drive anything. Instead of making a multitude of decisions that outline where the Government wants the country to go, the extension tends to cause the money to be spent on a few items with little real impact. And, by the way: neither can investments be approved, warns Carreras. Public works, nothing.
A budget extension also puts European funds at risk, warns Albert Carreras
And one last detail, no less. A budget extension also puts European funds at risk, warns Albert Carreras. “European funds must go through budgets”, he underlines. According to this economist, it is most likely that the Comptroller General of the State (who oversees public accounts) will not allow this step to be skipped.
Can they be done?
At the present time, preparing the budgets is no setback. Last Friday, on the same day that Junts voted to leave the Government, the different departments of the Generalitat sent Economy their prioritizations (this is the name given to the lists of expenses they want to make with the money that Economy has previously told them about have). And this information is in the hands of the Generalitat, no matter how much there is now a change of councillors.
Considering that it is the beginning of October, completing and presenting the budgets is therefore no obstacle. Another issue is the electoral convenience of doing so. But assuming this is a problem, it is for one party, not the whole country.
What is to be expected is that the Government presents the accounts in time to apply them in 2023. Because that is governing. If not, let them call elections.
Protagonists
Last week, despite the possible departure of Junts del Govern, Jaume Giró made ambitious fiscal proposals: a deflation of personal income tax (which means lowering it to prevent inflation from causing a hidden increase) and an increase in minimum exempt property tax: it is currently paid from 500,000 euros and he wanted to raise the threshold to 700,000 euros, as is the case in most communities where this tax is paid. In fact, when wealth tax was reintroduced in Spain – in 2011 – the Generalitat set the minimum exempt amount at 700,000 euros. But the following year this limit was cut to 500,000 euros. Although when this minimum exemption was set it was a time of lean cows and the Generalitat was looking for money from under the rocks, since then it has remained. After Giró made his fiscal proposals, the Department of the Presidency hastened to clarify that this was an idea of the now ex-counselor and that in no case had they validated it.
Nobody quite knows what the metaverse is for yet, but just in case, more and more companies are poking their noses into it. The latest to do so has been the employers’ association Foment del Treball, which last week held a day around this virtual world. Its president, Josep Sánchez Llibre, assured that this technology generates opportunities, but also uncertainties. What he may have missed, however, was a picture of how he is seen in this virtual world.