The Popular Party negotiates with the PSOE to facilitate the Government in the preliminary phase of the Budgets Generals of the State, giving the green light to the stability objectives – a step prior to the public accounts and which has to be approved in the Senate, where the popular ones have an absolute majority. The Treasury wanted to allow the State a deficit of 2.7% of GDP this year, only 0.1% for the autonomous communities and 0.2% for Social Security.
The PP announced that it was going, in principle, to use its majority in the Upper House to overturn the objectives. However, in the last few hours, the deputy secretary of Economy of the PP, Juan Bravo, announced that they could approve them if the Executive “gives in to a series of demands”, which pass for reducing taxes, sharing fiscal objectives with the autonomous communities, respecting their fiscal autonomy and a fund of social policies for these administrations.
«There you have the outstretched hand of the Popular Party to improve the lives of the Spanish people, although I am very afraid that they will not do it because Sánchez is tied hand and foot and the person in charge is also a fugitive from justice,” said the spokesperson for the PP in the Senate, Alicia García, in a press conference on the roof. of government spending.
The PP has argued its vote against the stability objectives that will be debated this Wednesday in the Senate because it considers that “they make Spaniards poorer and more unequal.” Furthermore, the Popular Party have defended that the vote in the Senate demonstrates coordination and sharing a common project within the party, since both the autonomous communities of the PP and the group in Congress voted against these objectives.
Despite this, the popular people have insisted on keeping their “hand extended” to the Government, although with a series of requirements. In tax matters, The PP has proposed the deflation of personal income tax, the reduction of VAT on electricity and gas and also the reduction in VAT on food on meat and fish. and to preserves and the elimination of the tax on energy production.
Likewise, it has demanded co-responsibility in the distribution of the deficit path, respect for the fiscal autonomy of these administrations and the extraordinary allocation for the autonomous communities that allows them to address health, education and social policies.
On this background, the PP deputy secretary of Economy, Juan Bravo He recalled that the current Minister of Finance defended in 2017 that it was necessary to provide the autonomous communities with an extra 16,000 million to cover all the expenses they were assuming. In any case, the PP has not proposed a fixed amount for this fund.
A vote against the popular party would undermine the stability objectives, given their absolute majority in the Upper House. According to the Budget Stability Law, 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 processing procedure.
The PP has already warned that it will be “complicated” to approve new objectives if the Executive proposes the same path and does not heed its proposals.
In any case, Bravo has called on the Government to negotiate “whenever they want and where they want” and reminded them that this Thursday Sánchez could meet the Council of Ministers to present “a new path of stability.” «For other things we have seen plenary sessions stop so that they can reach an agreement. We have nothing more important than fixing this problem. “Whenever and wherever they want,” he insisted.