The PSOE will try to avoid the PP's veto of the Budgets by confronting its autonomies before considering changing the law
The General State Budgets of 2024 are already being discovered as the new great political battle, once the investiture has passed and the amnesty is still in progress. The Government took the first step this Wednesday to begin its processing without losing sight of the fact that the PP will be able to make them decline in the Senate, where it has an absolute majority and has the capacity to veto the stability objectives.. The socialists are already thinking about how to get around this veto, but before considering a legislative change – something they do not rule out – they will try to convince those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo by putting pressure on the autonomous communities and city councils led by the popular ones, for whom the fact of Having Budgets is vital.
“I find the debate very curious because no one knows what the Government is going to propose and they are already talking about a veto,” launched the socialist spokesperson in Congress, Patxi López.. In a press conference held from the Lower House, he reminded the popular parties that vetoing the stability objectives “is preventing city councils from making their budgets.”. “They need this tool to exist to know what margins to operate within,” he added.
The Budget Stability law was the work of the first Government of Mariano Rajoy, who approved it in 2012. The articles establish that the Government must approve “stability and public debt objectives” that must be approved by Congress, where the PSOE could enjoy a majority to approve it, and in the Senate, where the PP has a comfortable majority. absolute majority. In the event that either of the two Chambers rejects them, they should be redone and voted on again.. Therefore, the popular ones could derail the accounts even before they are drawn up.
President Pedro Sánchez has already made some move to change this law, but it has not happened and now the PSOE is hiding its cards. First they will wait for María Jesús Montero, Minister of Finance and recently promoted to fourth vice president, to present the stability objectives and they will see what the PP does.. Because, they insist privately, it is a tool that communities and city councils – now governed mostly by the popular ones – need to prepare their own accounts.. “They are not going to veto themselves,” reflect the same sources.
A reflection that moves away from that offered by the popular ones. Management sources do not rule out using this veto capacity in the Upper House, although they have stressed that they cannot comment at this time on a plan that they have not yet seen and that they will have to evaluate when the Government presents it.. In any case, they are aware of the weapon they have to hinder the Government's Accounts. As they are also aware that this can change the budget stability law to bypass the Senate veto. In the PP they already warn that if the PSOE reforms the budget stability law, they will appeal it. “Because what would be the intention of overriding the veto? Not having control.”
However, from the socialist formation they assume that there will be General Budgets. The Minister of Finance's intention is for them to be approved in the first quarter of next year. This is where the possibility of changing the law comes in, although neither the Government nor the PSOE have yet put themselves in that scenario without ruling it out. “They will have to explain” if they make the approval of the Budgets difficult, the Executive spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, defended yesterday.