Montoro offered the Spanish regional governments 6 billion euros yesterday so that they can reduce their deficit to zero by 2017. In a new and inexplicable deal, the Finance Ministry is preparing to relax its oversight over public accounts and provide spending money to governments as they head into an election year. Recently, these same governments failed to meet their debt obligations in 2013.
Of the 6 billion euros, the regional governments will get 3.903 billion in 2015. The EU is understandably irked that Spain would compromise its finances in order to win voters. The national government's initial stiffness toward the regions is fading as it keeps offering them aid packages without asking them to curtail expenses.
