Spain’s government approves general state budgets for 2023

Euskaraz irakurri: Espainiako Gobernuak 2023ko Estatuko Aurrekontu Orokorrak onartu ditu

The government of Spain issued this Tuesday the General Budget Act (PGE) of 2023the most comprehensive of Spanish democracy, with more than €198 billion spending ceilingwhich include raising civil servants’ salaries, updating pensions with the CPI, increasing health care spending and new support for families and the unemployed.

In the press conference after the Council of Ministers, the Spanish Minister of Finance and Public Administration, María Jesús Montero, emphasized that the objective of these budgets, the third parties of the government of the PSOE-United Podemos coalition and the last of this legislator, is able to go through a moment of “enormous uncertainty” due to the war in Ukraine, while providing “security and stability” to families and sending a “clear message” abroad about the solvency and dynamism of the Spanish economy.

Spain’s First Vice-President and Minister of the Economy and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño, has indicated that the new public accounts are based on a growth forecast of 2.1% for next year, which she described as “cautious”, and she expect a GDP deflator of 4% for this year and 3.8% for 2023.

The new budgets incorporate the recently announced tax package, including the new tax on large wealth from assets of 3 million euros, the reduction of the income tax for income to 21,000 euros, the increase in the tax on the income from the wealth of 200,000 euro, the reduction of the modules for the self-employed or the increase in corporate tax for large companies.

What the public accounts do not include are the measures taken to mitigate the effects of the war, with the exception of the transport bonus Renfe, Cercanías and Rodalies, which will be extended until the whole of 2023. The other measures will be evaluated as soon as they are in place exhausted in December, and according to Montero it will be decided which will be extended and which not.

register social expenses

Immediately register social expenseswith these bills, the government of Spain seeks boost healthespecially primary care, educationthe dependence waves scholarships, for next year. In addition, PSOE and United We Can have agreed on the introduction of a family law that will include new reconciliation permits, the promotion of a child-raising allowance of EUR 100 per month for families with children under the age of 0 to 3 and that equates single mothers with two children to the current category of large families.

Montero recalled that the non-financial spending limit for 2023, known as the ‘spending ceiling’, is 198,221 million euros, a new record, 1.1% higher than that of 2022, including 25,156 million funds Europeans and a transfer to social security. of 19,888 million, 8.1% more than last year. The deficit will be 3.9% of GDP.

As for the debt, Calviño explained that in 2023 it will continue the downward path that started after the pandemic, thanks to economic growth and the reduction of the government deficit. Specifically, it will amount to 112.4% of GDP.

With these bills, civil servants will see their pay increase by 2.5%, and it can be increased by up to one additional point, depending on variables related to the CPI and nominal GDP. They will therefore receive 0.5% more if the sum of the harmonized CPI for 2022 and the future harmonized CPI for September 2023 is higher than 6%.

The other variable, also 0.5%, is applied if the nominal GDP is equal to or greater than the estimate in the macroeconomic table for the PGE 2023, in accordance with what has been agreed with the CC unions. OO. and UGT.

Next year’s bills will also have to deal with the updating of pensions according to the CPI year-over-year for the month of November, which according to Montero could be 8.5%, which will represent a significant budgetary effort.

The head of the Treasury has emphasized that social spending will break a record next year, reaching 266,179 million euros, 35.4% more than the last budgets of the PP, while the education item will grow by 62% in the same period (4,164 million); scholarships and study aid, 68% (2,474 million); and health, with an increase of 145% (5,511 million euros).

“The public sector is not a brake on growth; it is one of the engines that enables us to create jobs,” Montero reiterated, after expecting personnel costs to increase by 6.6% in 2023, to 20,502. million euros, for the salary increase of 2.5%, which can be increased to 3.5%. At this point you have explicitly mentioned CC. OO. and UGT, to thank them for the agreement reached on this.

The Spanish finance minister has emphasized that six out of every ten euros goes to social spending, at 266,719 million euros, “the highest figure ever recorded for this item.”

Unsurprisingly, the public bills will arrive at the Congress of Deputies next week. On that day, the government of Spain will present the ‘yellow book’, accompanied by the mandatory gender report, the report on how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are progressing and the report on childhood, adolescence and family, as well as a separate section on youth. .