The Council of Ministers approves the cancellation of the regional debt that Andalusia and the PP communities reject

The Central Executive approved this measure in the second round and believes that regional governments will be able to save up to 6.7 billion euros in interest.

This maneuver by the government of Pedro Sánchez is one of the tolls to be respected for their alliances with the independence parties. The autonomous communities governed by the Popular Party, including Andalusia (which is also champion of this battle), They reject this tolerance which only benefits Catalonia.

The debt does not disappear, but is assumed by the State (and therefore the Spaniards with their taxes), so the moment the so-called “tax quota” is signed with the Catalan government, it will be free and will ignore the commitment to respect this debt.

Furthermore, the interest that would no longer be paid would not be used to invest in social policies: in housing, education or health, but would rather be used to repay the debt, as recognized by the technicians of the ministry and the Airef agency. In the Andalusian case, Management in recent years has enabled us to reduce debt so as to be able to access the international market under excellent conditions. Catalonia cannot say the same, which continues to pay for its independence claims.

Criticism of the People’s Party

Andalusia and Catalonia It would be the Autonomous Communities that would transfer the most debt in absolute terms (the State would assume 18.791 million and 17.104 million respectively), followed by C. Valenciana (11.210 million); Madrid (8.644 million); C-LM (4.927 million); Galicia (4,010 million); CyL (3.643 million); Murcia (3.318 million); Canary Islands (3.259 million); Aragon (2.124 million); Balearic Islands (1,741 million); Extremadura (1,718 million); Asturias (1,508 million); Cantabria (809 million) and La Rioja (448 million).

In this casting Euskadi and Navarra are not present, because they are not part of the common regime system.even if they have already declared that they want leverage the measure proposing that they be compensated in a manner similar to their regional systems.

Despite the clear rejection of the reduction by the PP, the government has recently predicted that communities governed by the “popular” party they will end up being welcome. The government’s intention is to submit the rule to Congress “before the end of the year” and to “finally” approve the law during the first quarter of 2026.

The Ministry of Finance At the moment, not all votes are linked to the parliamentary process. of this debt forgiveness, since certain partners like Together expressed their doubts because They criticize its extension to all communities.

Once the law was approved, the government indicated that there will be a deadline “wide enough” so that LACCs who wish to benefit from the condolenceand it must be so, because the State must plan the new debt it assumes, identifying what type of debt it is and the terms of repayment.

Three phases

The methodology for estimating this distribution includes three phases. In the first, the gap between the debt recorded by the Autonomous Communities during the end of 2009 and that of 2013 was calculated, and this debt is compared to that recorded between the end of 2019 and that of 2023. This first phase shows an average forgiveness of 19% of the total regional debt, in force at the end of 2023.

In the second phase, an additional discount is established for all Autonomous Communities that are below the average of 19.3% of the debt forgiven out of the total. “We are trying to correct this feeling of resentment that the autonomous communities may have in relation to what is happening with the rest of the territories,” Montero clarified.

And in the last phase, the Treasury made two adjustments for “greater fairness”: “First, identify the autonomous community that registers the greatest discount per adjusted inhabitant. In this case it is the Valencian Community, which would have 2,284 euros per capita adjusted and is therefore the reference figure.

The debt cancellation is then increased until reaching this same amount for the Autonomous Communities which recorded homogeneous financing per capita adjusted below the average between 2010 and 2022.

The next item is that an additional exemption is given to the CCAA which exercised its regulatory powers to increase personal income tax between 2010 and 2022. Concretely, those who exercised this power above the average will be able to benefit from an additional discount of 10%, which will be 5% if they are below the average.