PUBLIC FINANCES GENERAL OVERVIEW

• Stability Programme 2020 (Spanish)  (April 30, 2020 - pdf 1.1 MB)

  The Stability Programme is a key document for the design of the fiscal policy in the short, medium and long term, and for the coordination of economic policies in the European Union.

• Council EU: Council Decision abrogating EDP for Spain (June 14, 2019)

  On 14 June 2019, the Council closed the excessive deficit procedure for Spain, confirming that it has reduced its deficit below the EU's 3% of GDP reference value. Spain's general government deficit amounted to 2.5% of GDP in 2018, down from 3.1% of GDP in 2017. The Commission's spring 2018 economic forecast projects deficits of 2.3% of GDP in 2019 and 2.0% of GDP in 2020, thus remaining below the EU's 3% of GDP reference value over the forecast horizon.

BUDGET EXECUTION & BUDGETARY INFORMATION

• CoM: Approval of the 2021 Draft National Budget  (October 27, 2020 - pdf 119 KB)

  On 27 October the Council of Ministers approved the presentation of the Draft National Budget for 2021 to Parliament, which includes a first tranche of the European Union Recovery Funds.

• Eurostat: Provision of deficit and debt data for 2019 - second notification (October 22, 2020)

  In Spain the government deficit to GDP ratio rose from 2.5% in 2018 to 2.9% in 2019. The government debt to GDP ratio decreased from 97.4% at the end of 2018 to 95.5% at the end of 2019.

• Draft budgetary plan Spain 2021 (Spanish) (October 15, 2020)

  To ensure the coordination of fiscal policies among Member States sharing the euro as their currency and because economic policy is recognised by the EU Treaty as 'a matter of common concern', governments are required by European economic governance rules to submit their Draft Budgetary Plans for the following year to the Commission by October 15.

• Council of Ministers: Government agrees ceiling on spending for 2021 and suspends fiscal rules for this year and the next  (October 06, 2020 - pdf 22 KB)

  The government raised the limit on resources available to attend to the COVID-19 health emergency and to boost the recovery to the amount of 196.1 billion euros. Furthermore, to give regional governments and local authorities greater financial margin, no stability targets have been set, just reference guidelines on deficits.

• Budget Execution (September 30, 2020)

  The consolidated budget outturn of the General Government in June 2020 was a deficit of -6.4% of GDP (Central Government, -4.37%; Regional Governments, -0.67%; Social Security System, -1.15%; Local Administrations, -0.26%; financial 5aid, +0.01%) against -2.12% recorded in June 2019. The consolidated budget outturn of the General Government, excluding Local Administrations, in July 2020 was a deficit of -6.53% of GDP (Central Government, -5.42%; Regional Governments, +0.27%; Social Security System, -1.39%; financial aid, +0.01%) against -1.96% recorded in July 2019. The State deficit to the end of August stood at -5.39% of GDP against -1.23% recorded in August 2019.

• Banco de España: General government debt under the Excessive Deficit Protocol (EDP). (March 31, 2020)

  The general government debt under the Excessive Deficit Protocol (EDP), according to the spring EDP notification to the European Commission, amounted to €1.189 trillion at the end of December 2019. Using the nominal GDP, in 2019 the debt/GDP ratio stood at 95.5%, 2.1 pp less than in 2018. The annual growth rate of the outstanding debt was 1.3%.

• European Commission: Opinion on the Draft Budgetary Plan of Spain (November 20, 2019)

  Overall, while acknowledging the no-policy-change nature of its projections, the Commission is of the opinion that the DBP of Spain is at risk of non-compliance with the provisions of the SGP. In particular, the Commission projects a risk of significant deviation from the required adjustment path to the medium-term budgetary objective. Moreover, Spain is not expected to make sufficient progress towards compliance with the debt reduction benchmark in 2019 and 2020. The Commission is also of the opinion that Spain has made limited progress with regard to the structural part of the fiscal recommendations contained in the Council Recommendation of 9 July 2019 in the context of the European Semester. It thus invites the authorities to accelerate progress.