Once again the agreement comes at the last moment. PSOE and United We Can have closed the fringes of the General State Budgets at dawn after conversations that have taken place against the clock. Finally, Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz will formalize the understanding for what will be the last public accounts of the coalition this Tuesday morning prior to its approval in the Council of Ministers. From there, the budget project will go to Congress, where the government intends to achieve the support of the investiture forces.
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The negotiation of the Budgets was channeled last week when the teams from the Ministry of Finance and United We Can closed the fiscal reform, which was one of the most controversial parts of the talks. From there, the negotiators went on to close the details of the budget project, which will mean the largest social spending in history, according to government sources.
Housing, parenting and unemployment, the last hurdles
The tension has remained, however, until the last moment. The second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, assured in an interview in Hora 25 this Monday after 10 p.m. that the agreement was not closed and that both parties were estranged. The main stumbling block, assured the leader of United We Can within the coalition, was the housing law. The minority partner also pressed to expand unemployment benefits as well as a generalized aid for raising between 0 and three years of 100 euros. She was also very critical of the way of negotiating until the last moment for which she held the majority shareholder responsible. However, the socialist wing of the Executive assured on Monday afternoon that the ball was already on the roof of United We Can to close the agreement.
At 6:55 a.m. this Tuesday, the Secretary of State for Communication announced that “the coalition government parties have reached an agreement in relation to the General State Budget Bill.” After the meeting between Sánchez and Díaz, the Council of Ministers will give the green light to the public accounts, as planned.
For Moncloa, the budget agreement represents a “new sign of stability” by assuming the third accounts “in a timely manner” since 2020, unlike what happened during the mandates of Mariano Rajoy.
They sidestep the clash over military spending
Waiting for the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, to give the details of the bulk of the public accounts, Moncloa assures that they will guarantee the purchasing power of pensioners, that is, that pensions will be revalued according to the CPI, as recovered by law, as well as the improvement of the working and salary conditions of public employees after having reached an agreement with the unions to raise salaries by 9.5% in the next three years.
“Health, especially primary care, education, dependency or scholarships are some of the items that will be reinforced in the coming years,” add government sources. Another of the stumbling blocks that the coalition has avoided is the increase in defense spending to which Sánchez committed in the framework of the NATO summit and on which much of the controversy has pivoted on this occasion and until the last moment. Hours before presenting the Budgets, Podemos insisted on their rejection of the project including “a single cent” while the PSOE assured that the commitment would be fulfilled. Government sources assume that there will be at least a slight increase. Sánchez’s intention is for military spending to reach 2% of GDP in 2029, in line with what was promised to the allies.
