More regional governments will overspend this fiscal year

As the regional governments dig deeper into the financial status of their respective territories they are confirming insurmountable struggles to comply with the budgets they enacted in accords with a mandatory agreement contracted in the headquarters of the national Fiscal and Financial Policy Board. Just yesterday, the advisor for the Public Finance Administration of Aragon, Mario Garcés, formally announced that his government will not meet the planned objective of lowering the regional government deficit to 1.3% of their GDP and, further, that the deficit could be twice this hoped for amount, considering that it will top 2.6%.

This figure is the same that the Catalonian Generalitat has accounted for in their budget.

The Aragon government is cognizant of an incredible fall in tax revenues and at the same time he thinks that the previous government (run by Marcelino Iglesias) planned expenditures have had a minimal impact.

When the regional governments? budget figures were made public during Q1, Aragon was one of the three that registered a surplus (0.19%). Galicia (0.14%) and Rioja (0.18) did as well.

Transparency

The Minister of the Economy and Finance has been reviewing public accounts for regional governments, which should be made public during the next few weeks according to transparency agreements that say regional governments must publish their budget results on a quarterly basis.

Cantabria is another community that will not meet its budget goals this year. It finished the second quarter of the year with a deficit of 1.28%, which makes one think that in the remaining 6 months of the year it will be impossible to stay within the 1.3% limit.