The European Commission considers the absence of public accounts an internal matter and avoids reproaching the Spanish Government, which has gone four years without presenting a budget proposal.
The European Commission has avoided commenting on the lack of General State Budgets in Spain. A source from Brussels has admitted to THE OBJECTIVE that, although there is concern, "for the Commission it is an internal issue" in which "it cannot intervene".
The Government of Pedro Sánchez failed last Wednesday, for the fourth consecutive year, to fulfil its constitutional obligation to present a public accounts project to the Cortes, a situation unprecedented in the European Union. The budget extension has been renewed through exceptional regulations approved during the covid pandemic, which has effectively deprived the Legislative Power of one of its main functions.
The new fiscal rules for 2024 require national Governments to present structural plans and to comply with the spending path approved by the EU. This mechanism did not eliminate the need to present the draft Budgets, but the Executive has been extending the 2023 accounts. The consulted community source describes this procedure as "clearly unconstitutional", as the extension is only permitted once Congress rejects the proposal, something that has not even occurred.
The European observer points out that President Ursula von der Leyen and her team "should be much tougher", but they act "very cautiously, at least in public" to "not alarm the markets". Criticism has appeared in the European report on the Government's economic forecasts, which are based on assumptions from a budget extended since 2023, and in the report on the rule of law, which mentions a "lack of agreement on a new Budget in Parliament".
"A draft Budget was sent to Brussels and the obligation has been eliminated because what was presented was nothing and less: everyone has ended up accepting that Spain does not present Budgets," laments Francisco de la Torre, tax inspector and former president of the Congress budget committee.
De la Torre warns that "above all, there is a problem of democratic control" and recalls that "Parliaments were created to control the expenses of monarchies". "It is not that Congress has rejected them, it is that they have not been presented. It is a democratic problem because the current Budgets, based on extensions, are approved by a dissolved Cortes, which no longer represent the Spaniards, by a pandemic regulation and another from a decree law," he adds. He describes the current mechanism as a "botch" and denounces the "little control" and the "opacity" with which "money is moved around" through decisions of the Council of Ministers. He also warns that, with the deterioration of the global economic situation and the end of Next Generation funds, the failure to approve accounts will become an economic problem beyond its damage to legal certainty.
Doctor of Law and tax lawyer Esaú Alarcón considers this to be "another example of the illiberal drift in which the country is heading, of loss of rights and democracy". Alarcón partly blames the Constitutional Court, which relaxed its interpretation on this matter when there was a delay beyond the September 30 deadline. "We have ended up with no Budgets and with decree laws for extreme urgent needs. The legislative process has been perverted," he asserts. He explains that during the pandemic, a provision was introduced in the General Budget Law that allowed the transfer of items from one part to another, an alteration that "has been extended year after year". For Alarcón, "Brussels is silent now and did not remain silent with Rajoy because with Rajoy there was a shortfall of 2.5 billion euros and there was no public money", which led to the arrival of the men in black, who only activate "when a State is failed".
The budget extension remains in place while the Government decides whether to present a new accounts project or continue with the 2023 extension, with Brussels having set no deadline to comment.
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