The amendment passed with a large majority, leading to the approval of the budget, which was backed by Catalan separatists from the ERC and other small regional parties.
Hopefully this will be the prologue to many more agreements, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez wrote on Twitter shortly after the result of the vote was announced. We will work for it.
It is the first time since 2014 in Spain that two consecutive annual budgets have been approved, the Socialist prime minister told parliament. From 2016 to 2020, a fragmented parliament blocked any agreement on spending plans, resulting in the same budget being passed year after year.
The 2022 budget was due to receive Senate approval last week, but the conservative Popular Party backed a proposal to increase funding for minority languages, making a 180-degree turn from its traditional positions and blowing up the vote. The draft budget was approved by a majority of 281 votes out of 344, announced Alfredo Rodriguez, deputy speaker of parliament, who replaced President Mericelle Battette, who has been challenged by Covid.
The budget provides for an unprecedented level of spending of 240 billion euros, to be funded to the tune of 26.3 billion euros. from the European Economic Recovery Plan, from which Madrid is expected to receive 140 billion euros over six years.
It includes several flagship measures, such as the adjustment of pensions and civil servants' salaries, which will increase by 2% from 1 January, and implements the government's promises to tackle the precariousness of young people. Thus, the government announced a monthly allowance of 250 euros a month for young people aged 18 to 35 on low incomes to enable them to pay their rent, and a culture cheque of 400 euros for young people aged 18.
At the request of their government partner, the radical left-wing party Podemos, the Socialists agreed to set a framework for the rents of houses owned by large landlords in certain zones. The budget, which includes an important social arm, is expected to help Spain consolidate its economic recovery, threatened by galloping inflation (5.5% in November) and a slower-than-expected recovery in the tourism sector, on which 13% of the country's jobs depend.
The Spanish economy, one of the hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, with a 10.8% drop in GDP in 2020, is not expected to return to pre-crisis levels before 2023, the European Commission estimates. In the budget, the government projects a return of the budget deficit to 5% next year, after reaching 8.4% in 2021. But this ambition is based on a forecast of 7% GDP growth in 2022 (against 6.5% projected for this year), a target that many economists consider unrealistic.
Source: CNA
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