The first vice president and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, is already throwing in the towel and anticipates that the stability path –with the deficit and debt ceilings for the Administrations for 2026– “it will not go ahead” in the Congress of Deputies tomorrowafter the first approximation of a vote that Junts and other political groups have made, including the Popular Party, so the Government will once again take it to a vote before the Lower House.
The insurmountable obstacle is once again posed by Junts, for its refusal to support the proposal that the Government will present, according to what the Treasury has already been able to probe. Podemos, for its part, announced its abstention but that is not enough to save the vote.
If the path proposed by the Government is rejected a second time – the first step for the preparation of the General State Budgets for 2026 – the possibility, according to the Government, is taken away from the autonomous communities of having 5.5 billion euros more to spend on their public policies in the next three years.
“The consequence of this is that the Government of Spain will have more fiscal space which the autonomous communities are going to have due to simple tantrum and confrontation of the Popular Party, which does not even vote in favor of what benefits it,” said Montero in statements to the media in the corridors of the Senate.
Specifically, in the event that the approval of the Lower House is not achieved on that second occasion, it will be will establish the stability objectives proposed in the fiscal structural plan that was sent to the Commission European in 2024, although the spending ceiling, which is not voted on by Congress, would be the same approved by the Government this year (216,177 million in 2026), and with these new numbers, next year’s Budgets would be approved.
Montero acknowledged that he cannot understand how the PP, which governs the majority of autonomous communities, says no to debt forgiveness or stability objectives. “Every day they ask for more resources and when resources are put on the table they vote no,” criticized the head of the Treasury.
As for Junts, Montero pointed out that it is the one that always has the vote and the last word, and therefore will have to speak. The PP and Vox have always opposed the four stability objectives that the Government has presented in the legislature. For her part, Junts spokesperson in Congress, Miriam Nogueras, warned that if the deficit proposal for the autonomies is the same as a year ago, they will vote against it as they already did in 2024: “If it presents the same thing, it will have the same vote as it had last year.”
