The Government has once again encountered the complex parliamentary arithmetic that characterizes the legislature and has regained negative feelings regarding the approval of the General State Budgets (PGE).
This Thursday, the Executive has decided to postpone for the second time the vote of the Finance Commission that was scheduled to approve a fiscal package negotiated between the different groups of the investiture bloc.
However, the lack of consensus and crossed vetoes have prevented positions from being brought together before the commission took place, so, as it did last Monday, the Government has suspended the meeting and postponed it until next Monday with the aim of continuing to gain time in the negotiation.
The fiscal package, which is included via amendments within the law that aspires to set a minimum effective rate in the Corporate Tax for the large multinationalsis not directly related to the Budgets, nor is it the fiscal plan that will accompany the accounts.
However, the Executive had established a roadmap to grease the negotiations with the Congressional groups that contemplated three milestones: the approval of this plan, first; that of the deficit path and stability objectives budgetary, secondly; and the approval of the Budgets, as a definitive step.
The puzzle that is involved in carrying out this plan is a reflection of the total lack of ideological coherence within an investiture block in which groups from the left and groups from the right coexist.
Sources familiar with the negotiation described it these days as a scenario of “crossed vetoes”: on the one hand, Junts and the PNV agreed with the PSOE on a series of amendments that dropped the tax on energy companies and reformed the extraordinary tax on energy companies. banking (both levies are temporary and expire at the end of December).
On the other hand, Sumar and the socialists agreed a tax package which, among other measures, ended the special tax regime for SOCIMIs, increased the tax pressure on tourist apartments and private health insurance, and implemented a luxury tax. In a third area, the parliamentary left ( Podemos, ERC and EH Bildu) refuse to support the amendments that drop the tax on energy companies, and they demand their permanence (a position that Sumar also shares, despite its fiscal pact with the PSOE).
Although some groups had appealed to the need for all parties gave way to allow the agreementthis Thursday the enormous complexity of combining the different demands of the groups, clearly contradictory between them, has once again been revealed. While Junts and the PNV are openly committed to dropping the tax on energy companies, the left is demanding the opposite, and no group is contemplating moving from its position today.
“Very complicated”
Government sources completely separate this issue from budget negotiations. “They are two different and parallel issues,” they point out. Those talks still continue discreetly and with the time horizon of the pending congressional processes ending, especially that of ERC.
“We have never had it easy,” the socialists repeat like a mantra when addressing this fiscal package. “It won’t be for us, but everyone here has to be aware of the situation and that we have to make assignments“, point out socialist sources.
From the Ministry of Finance, the sources consulted do not hide that the situation is “very complicated” due to the immovable positions of the partners and the ideological competition between parties. But at the same time they believe that there is a small way open to reaching an agreement. “If it were impossible, it would have been voted on today and that’s it,” they add. The socialists give themselves a “last chance” on Monday in the Finance Commission before the initiative reaches the plenary session next Thursday.
It’s not the first time
This is not the first time that the Government has decided to withdraw a vote to prolong negotiations and exhaust the options for an agreement. It happened already in the month of May with the new Land Law which came to Congress directly from the Council of Ministers. Upon realizing that not even Sumar was going to support this reform, the socialists withdrew the vote from the agenda.
The Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodriguezthen announced that the initiative was moving to the parliamentary level so that some issues of a law that the Government essentially considers necessary due to the request made by the municipalities can be negotiated. In fact, the PSOE appealed more to the PP than to the investiture majority and criticized that the intentions of the popular party had been solely “electoralist” and with the aim of “tripping Sánchez.”
More recently, the Government decided to postpone the spending ceiling vote after failing to convince Junts of their favorable vote. The Catalan formation already overturned these budget stability objectives in the month of July. And in September, when the vote was scheduled, the Government withdrew it from the agenda of Congress to continue negotiating with Carles Puigdemont’s party.
The slogan then was to give ourselves more time to reach an agreement in a context marked by Together Congresswhich was held a few weeks ago. At the moment there is no date to resume this vote, an important preliminary step for the approval of the Budgets because it adapts the accounts to the existing economic reality.
A context that has precisely changed after DANA and its consequences especially in the Valencian Country. In Moncloa they consider that it is now more necessary than before to approve new public accounts. Sánchez’s partners have already warned, in any case, that aid for DANA is not in danger but they separate the negotiations from this and will insist that their requests be met. Apparently, so far, the path remains complex.
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