The effort of the measures adopted by the Government to counteract the consequences of the war will cost the Spanish economy 0.6% of GDP, according to the estimate made by the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (Airef) in the Report on the execution budget, public debt and spending rule 2022 of public administrations, published yesterday. This impact does not take into account the possible income derived from taxes on banks and energy companies, "because their lack of definition does not allow us to make any projections about their impact," explained the director of the division. of budget analysis, Ignacio Fernández-Huertas. Despite this, the good evolution of tourism allows us to estimate GDP growth of 4.2%, barely one tenth less than the previous estimate.
The president of Airef, Cristina Herrera, also focused on the lack of definition of the Government: "Every day new measures are adopted for which it is difficult to assess their sufficiency or not to correct the situation that is being experienced," she assured. Herrera recalled in turn that the pension reform needs to be completed and there is hardly any visibility of European aid. For this reason, Airef recommends to the Government more detail in defining and forecasting the impact of the measures adopted, as well as completing the medium-term fiscal strategy to reach a deficit level sufficient to redirect the debt towards more sustainable paths.
In the short term, the greatest risk lies in inflation, whose forecast has been revised upwards, from 6.5% to 7.8%, which will imply an increase in pension spending of 10.1%, up to 15,000 million euros and a brake on private consumption.
