General State Budgets 2023: To which policies will more spending be devoted and to which less?

Distribution of the expense of the PGE of 2023 by items – EPDATA

4 Oct. (EDITIONS) –

The Government has approved the bill for the General State Budget (PGE) for 2023, the most expansive in Spanish democracy, with more than 198,000 million euros of spending ceiling and which incorporates the increase in the salary of civil servants, the update of pensions with the CPI, a 25% increase in defense spending, more health spending and new aid to families and the unemployed.

The largest budget item will be the one destined to pay pensions and will amount to 190,687 million euros. This represents an increase of 11.4% in relation to the 2022 Budgets and will represent 39.2% of their total.

This increase is due to the update of pensions according to the CPI, which the Government estimates at an increase of around 8.5%, as stated in the General State Budgets (PGE) presented this Tuesday after the Council of Ministers .The section dedicated to transfers to other Public Administrations is the second largest item, with 66,457 million euros (5.1% more than in 2022) and a relative weight in the PGE of 13.7%.

31,275 million euros will be allocated to the payment of the public debt in the PGE of 2023, which represents 6.4% of them and an increase in relation to the 2022 Budgets of 3.6%, as reflected in the documents released by the Ministry of Finance. Services of a general nature will receive 25,970 million euros (5.3% of the total and a decrease of 14.7%) and 22,300 million (4.6% of the total and an increase of 6.3%).

SPENDING ON EDUCATION, DEFENSE AND HEALTH

Defense spending will increase by almost 26% and if the funds from the European Union (EU) are added, it will rise to 12,317 million euros, compared to 9,791 in 2022. Thus, the relative weight of Defense spending in the PGE of 2023 will be 2.5%.

On the other hand, the total expenditure on education (national budget and EU funds) will be 5,354 million euros, so the item increases by 6.6% in relation to the PGE of 2022 (1.1% relative weight).

Likewise, spending on health in 2023 will be 7,049 million euros (between the national budget and European funds), that is, 6.7% more than in 2022 and a relative weight of 1.5%.

ALMOST 60% OF SOCIAL SPENDING

If the budget items are grouped together, 58.5% of the spending of the 2023 PGE will go to concepts linked to the so-called ‘social spending’. The ‘actions of a general nature’ will receive 27.6% of the budgets, those of ‘economic character’ 7.9% and ‘basic public services’ 6%.

In figures, social spending will receive 266,391 million euros from the national budget (without EU funds), ‘general actions’ 125,970 million; those of an ‘economic nature’ 35,894 million and ‘public services’ 27,395 million euros.

To see the details of more spending policies, here