The General State Budgets (PGE) will allocate 1,269.46 million euros to the Valencian Community by 2023, which represents 9.4% of the territorial investment of the entire State. Although the figure is quite close to the population weight of the Valencian Community (around 10.6%), it is still below this percentage.
Regarding last year's accounts, the percentage increases slightly from 9.3% to 9.4%, which translates into 60 million more. A slight increase of 4.8% compared to the previous year that leaves Valencia as the third autonomous community with the highest investment in the state public sector.
Now it is necessary for the accounts approved by the coalition government to pass the parliamentary process and, above all, for the planned investments to be executed throughout the coming year.
In the comparison, the Valencian Community remains as the fourth autonomous community with the most investment, surpassed by Catalonia and Andalusia, which receive 2,508.92 million euros and 2,318.85 million, respectively, almost twice as much as the Valencian Community.
On this occasion, the Valencian Community has been overtaken by Madrid, where the State will invest 1,305.35 million; In the 2022 accounts, despite having a smaller population, the Valencian Community had planned a greater investment than the region chaired by Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
After knowing the data, the spokesman for the Treasury of the Popular Group in Les Corts, Rubén Ibáñez, has indicated that "Sánchez leaves all Valencians planted again and gives President Puig a new slap by failing to fulfill his promise of the population weight for investment in the General State Budgets. Puig places the Community in the face of indifference towards Sánchez”.
Ibáñez has indicated that “the Valencian Community is once again losing substantial weight in investments compared to the rest of Spain. Not only are we not taken into account, but also, applying the inflation that currently exists, the increase is not only minimal, but we even lose out." And he adds: "With these accounts we confirm a new breach by Sánchez with all the Valencians with the complacency of Puig who does not paint anything to claim the investments that are of justice in the Valencian Community”.
For her part, the Citizens' Trustee (Cs) in Les Corts Valencianes, Ruth Merino, has emphasized that "one more year, the central government ratifies the constant neglect and contempt to which it subjects us Valencians, now with the General State Budgets, which do not meet the needs of the Valencian Community at all”.
On the other hand, the unions have wanted to highlight the situation of underfunding that the Valencian Community is experiencing, as is the case of CCOO-PV, whose general secretary, Ana García Alcolea, believes that "when we start from underfunding like the one we have in the País Valencià, we cannot fall into any triumphalism of receiving something more in the future budget compared to the previous year".
Likewise, García Alcolea considers that "everything that arrives will be welcome and should be used in the most effective and efficient way", but he has remarked that "it is not enough". He defends that "the bet must be decided to change the autonomous financing model and all the parties should support this issue".
On the other hand, the general secretary of the UGT-PV, Ismael Sáez, in a first approximation values that although the budget is "somewhat below the population weight, there are almost 12,000 million non-territorialized investments that surely some occur in our Community" , although he adds that "another thing is the degree of execution and it will be necessary to know what causes determine that it is so low".
