A report prepared by the consulting firm Bnfix Pitch indicates that this fact is the cause of 80% of the increase in regional debt
A new study on the impact of underfinancing concludes that the Region of Murcia stopped receiving an average of 650 million euros per year over the last 10 years due to the regional financing system. This report, prepared by Bnfix Pitch, a consulting firm headed by Valentín Pich, president of the General Council of Economists, attributes 80% of the increase in regional debt in the last decade to the regional financing system.
The document specifically analyzes the evolution of the uniprovincial communities, except for Madrid, due to the particularities of this community. Thus, and after comparing the funding received by the Region of Murcia, Asturias, Cantabria and La Rioja, the study concludes that the Region of Murcia failed to receive an average of 650 million euros per year over the last 10 years. In that period of time, therefore, the debt of the Region of Murcia increased by nearly 6,500 million euros as a direct consequence of the regional financing system.
This report is added to three other works that, applying different methodologies, conclude that the relationship between underfinancing and the increase in regional debt can be set in a range that would range from a minimum of 60% to 90%. The Minister of Economy, Finance and Digital Administration, Luis Alberto Marín, stressed that these figures “confirm what we have already been able to see in other reports and that in reality we have all known for a long time, including the Minister of Finance herself, and that is that The regional financing system is a burden for the Region of Murcia and maintains a territorial imbalance that is absolutely unsustainable.
One of these reports is that of the economist Ángel de la Fuente for the Foundation for Applied Economics Studies (Fedea), which indicates that since 2013 the Region of Murcia is always the second community with the least funding per inhabitant behind the neighboring Valencia, although in 2020 Murcia became the worst financed community.
In that year, specifically, financing in the Region stood at 2,346 euros per inhabitant, far from the 2,542 euros per inhabitant of the national average and the 3,001 euros per inhabitant of Cantabria, the best financed community. According to the figures in this report, the percentage of the debt directly attributable to this lack of financing would be around 91%.
Another of the studies, prepared on this occasion by the Community based on data from International Financial Analysts and the General State Intervention and using a methodology from the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (Airef), sets that percentage at 88, 54%.
A fourth study, carried out by the Professor of Economic Theory at the University of Valencia and Secretary of State for the Treasury between 1991 and 1993, Antoni Zabalza, proposes that in order for the Region of Murcia and Valencia to be able to enter the financial markets again, forgive, respectively, 60 and 64% of their current debts.
“At this point, the relationship between underfinancing and regional debt is absolutely unquestionable. However, we have not heard anything for more than six months about the reform of the financing system that the central government promised to address. We are clear that this reform is not going to take place, and that is why it is urgent that at least a transitory compensation fund be established and that a plan be put in place to clean up and restructure this unfair debt that will guarantee quality public services that the million and a half inhabitants of our Region deserve”, explained Luis Alberto Marín.
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