The Ministry of Finance has a report from the State Attorney's Office in which the legal services of the administration point out that if the Senate rejects the deficit objectives proposed by the Government on two occasions, the budgetary path established in the Plan of Stability sent to Brussels by the Government last April. This path is more demanding than the gap that the Treasury has proposed today to the autonomous communities and city councils, so that the PP governments, and also the PSOE, would have to make a more demanding adjustment.
The autonomous communities have begun to prepare their budgets with a deficit of 0.1% (Catalonia, among them, the Treasury has explained), while the Stability Plan contemplates a budget balance. The city councils, for their part, currently contemplate a budget balance, while what was communicated to Brussels in April reflected a surplus of 0.2%.
All the autonomous communities governed by the PP have voted today, during the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council, against a deficit target of 0.1% for the autonomous communities. Up to 14 popular councilors opposed it at the meeting held at the Ministry of Finance.
This position invites the Treasury to think that the PP could raise opposition to the proposed path of stability and oppose it in the Senate, where it has an absolute majority. The Treasury has studied formulas to overcome this veto, but has concluded that it will not change the law to circumvent the vote in the Upper House. The scenario would be unprecedented.
The Treasury points out that if this veto is carried out, the cut will have to be greater in the autonomous communities and city councils. "We will have to be more demanding," said the fourth vice president, María Jesús Montero. "The PP would be throwing stones at its own roof, added the also Minister of Finance.
The consequence of the Senate rejecting the path of stability proposed by the Government would imply that the objectives of autonomous communities and city councils would be considered illegal, the Treasury has pointed out.
