The Popular Party has registered an urgent parliamentary initiative to force Pedro Sánchez’s Government to account for the execution of public spending on May 21. The party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo is analyzing the closure of the 2024 budget cycle and denounces the poor management of part of the funds. The PP talks about an accounting “botch” and criticizes the use of European Union resources to cover the structural deficit of the pension system in the absence of a Budget, which has been extended since 2023 due to the inability to approve new accounts in the Cortes.
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The core of the offensive focuses on the Court of Auditors’ report on the 2024 General State Account, approved on May 5, which points out that the Ministry of Finance used 2,389.4 million euros from leftover credits from European funds to pay pensions for passive classes and minimum supplements.
In detail, the supervisory body explains that 1,722.1 million euros were allocated to pensions for passive classes and 667.3 million to supplements for minimum pensions, financing both operations with leftover credits from service 50, the section reserved exclusively for the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism funds.
The conservative party has described these operations as “malpractice” and a technical “botch” that increases as the Executive is forced to manage the economy through systematic budget extensions.
However, the alleged incorrect use of the items has caused division even within the Court, as there are members who disagree on the interpretation of article 37.1 of Royal Decree-law 36/2020, which details the purpose of the funds. And the Vice President of the European Commission, Raffaele Fitto, also spoke on Wednesday regarding this, supporting the Executive’s decision. “Although the payment of pensions and other forms of current expenditure are not eligible for Recovery and Resilience Mechanism funds, it would be possible for Member States to temporarily use some of the liquidity from disbursements to cover other budgetary expenses,” said the EU official responsible for Cohesion and Reforms.
The Government has justified the use of these resources by arguing that, after an adjustment of the Recovery Plan projects, surplus credits were identified that would not be needed during the 2024 fiscal year and that did not compromise the fulfillment of the milestones and objectives agreed with the European Union. Furthermore, the Executive has insisted that budgetary changes are necessary legal tools, especially in a context of budget extension.
But for the opposition, the situation is directly linked to the “democratic anomaly” of governing without a Budget approved by the current Parliament, arising from the July 2023 elections. By operating with extended accounts, the Government would have made improper use of regulatory flexibilities originally designed for the pandemic emergency. According to the request submitted this Thursday by the PP, the Executive approved budget modifications worth 52,341 million in 2024 — 12% of total spending — outside the control of the General Courts, which the party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo considers a “violation of the Constitution.”
For its part, the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (Airef) emphasized this Thursday that presenting the Budgets would have “reduced the level of debate” about the destination of credits from European funds and their use, although it has not given a clear assessment of the Court’s report, reports Pablo Sempere.
The PP’s complaint also focuses on the low levels of execution of European funds. Despite having received almost 70% of the allocated money after renouncing 60 billion in loans, Spain has only effectively spent 44% of the transferred resources. If calculated on the initial plan of 163 billion euros, execution falls to 27%, according to the conservative party’s denunciation this Thursday. It is one of the lowest rates in the bloc, far from the levels of France or Germany. The Government continues to defend that there are limitations in measurement methods that generate timing mismatches and registration problems that result in an underestimation of actual execution. And it estimates that more than 90 billion in projects have been launched, above the theoretical allocation of grants granted by Europe, although only about 63 billion have been awarded so far.
The mechanism chosen by the opposition to oversee the management of the funds is the Joint Commission for Relations with the Court of Auditors. The Popular Party has formally requested the board of this body — where it holds a majority of three out of five members — to urgently modify the agenda for May 21 to include the appearance of the president of the Court of Auditors. The objective, according to the Populars, is for “Parliament to recover its oversight function and for all groups to express themselves about spending that is being managed with total opacity.”
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