The year 2022 will be transition.
The problems for Spain, and the pressure from Brussels, will come face to 2023 and are not going to be small.
The European Commission believes that the growth of our country will be lower than estimated by the Government (4.6% and 5.3% this year and the one that comes against 6.5 and 7% defending Moncloa),
And you have some discrepancies about the deficit or debt, but the numbers of the next course do not seem to worry too much.
This is how the evaluation of the budget draft of 2022 that Community institutions have published this noon, and in which there are no concrete concerns, alerts or aggressive language, as was usual in the past.
An approved in which, in fact, is aimed at an unusual factor for a country in trouble and lagging: that the fiscal position is not expansive.
The reasons for a positive analysis in general, despite a more than delicate economic situation and the fact that Spain is the slowest country in the recovery career, they are at least three.
One, the budget itself, since the technicians consider that the Spanish executive has reasonably followed the slogan of promoting the preferred recovery through the transfers of the European Anticrysis Fund, which do not compute for the deficit, and with pure public investment (albeit
Measure), and not through the current expenditure, which is what Italy does receiving a tug of strong ears.
Vice President Nadia Calviño, paradigm of prudence, has been criticized in the past for not launching stimuli equivalent to those of our neighbors. Thus, while by 2022, the Commission estimates a STANCE prosecutor, a contractive fiscal position of around 0.5 points (the only negative next to Slovakia), in Rome exceed 3% and Greece brushes 2%. Belgium and France, the other countries of high debt, are also located in the area of 0.5% expansive. “The lower expenditure funded nationally is, partially at least, with the fact that Spain took important fiscal measures in 2020 and 2021, above the EU average. So the fiscal position of 2022 is partly by the calendar “He has pointed out a senior European official on Wednesday. “What is very positive in Spain is the contribution of European funding. It is the first country that has requested a payment of funds,” said the same source by applauding Calviño’s decisions, applied student of the Commission.
The second reason that the next exercise does not wait shock is that the stability and growth pact is frozen, and although our economy is going to be well above reference thresholds (a deficit of 3% and a 60% debt
From GDP), now ‘nothing happens’.
The third, which with the pandemic still present is not clear when support measures will be truly eliminated and that Community funds have begun to arrive, but there is the wide majority to be disbursed, with even difficult effects to calculate.
“According to the Commission’s forecasts, the temporal emergency measures related to the crisis will be reduced from 2.4% of GDP by 2020 to 9% by 2021 and 0.2% in 2022”, can be read.
Brussels calls for prudence to Spain as a very indebted country, but at the same time he knows that, unlike Italy, the fiscal position of our country will be conservative.
“Given the level of the public debt of Spain, and the important challenges for sustainability in the medium term before the pandemic of Covid-19, by adopting budgetary measures of support, it is important to maintain a prudent fiscal policy to guarantee the sustainability of the
Public finances in the medium term, “says the document on a general recommendation that also applies to Belgium, France, Greece and Italy, countries with the highest public debt.
In 2022 the current expenditure will be more controlled than in many of its partners, also because the numbers in 2020 and 2021 were tall.
And there will be a lot of investment, but above all financed by community funds, since the measures coiled nationally in our country are the lowest of all the union, only behind Finland.
That said, the report of the budget reiterates that Spain is part of the group of economies with clear macroeconomic imbalances, highlighting beyond those already mentioned unemployment, private indebtedness or toxic assets in the banking sector.
Issues that do not now occupy the first line of concerns, but from 2023 onwards, when the stability pact and the most orthodox countries come back as before, it will be a problem.
