The Treasury is already working on the 2024 Budget, which it hopes to approve in January if Sánchez achieves the investiture

The acting Government has faith in carrying out the General State Budgets for 2024 although its approval is delayed to the beginning of next year. The Minister of Finance and Public Function, María Jesús Montero, highlighted this Tuesday that her department is already working internally on the preparation of public accounts for next year in the event that Pedro Sánchez manages to be sworn in as president in the coming weeks and form a new Government.

“Our idea is to arrive as soon as possible. It is evident that there will be a certain delay with respect to the calendar of previous years, but as long as it is approved close to the next few days of January, there is no problem with [the budgets] being retroactive,” said Minister Montero. at the press conference after the Council of Ministers. “We expect to have new accounts by 2024, but a series of elements that are not minor have to occur,” he added.

Montero recalled that the budget process begins when the Executive presents the stability objectives to the Congress and the Senate.. Precisely, the lack of this information on these objectives has raised complaints from regional and local administrations, which have had to prepare their budgets blindly, without knowing what the deficit and debt references set by the Government for these administrations are.

After setting the stability objectives, the Government must report on the spending ceiling and then the public accounts begin to be articulated.. Finally, the budget project is put to a vote in the Cortes chapter by chapter, for which it is necessary for each of them to pass by a simple majority (more yeses than noes).. In the event that the Senate vetoes a possible budget project – something foreseeable with the absolute majority held by the PP in the Upper House – the text would return to Congress, where it would need an absolute majority to lift the veto.. If that absolute majority of 176 seats is not achieved, the veto can be lifted two months later by a simple majority.

Although everything indicates that a possible budget project would not see the light until January of next year, the acting Government will have to advance the master lines of the public accounts of all the country's administrations to the EU within twelve days. The Executive has until October 15 to present the Budget Plan to the European Commission, which must include forecasts for economic growth and the evolution of public finances.

Approved the additional 0.5% increase for civil servants

In addition, the acting Government approved this Tuesday in the Council of Ministers an additional salary increase of 0.5% for public employees of all administrations.. This salary improvement is part of the agreement reached between the Executive, CC OO and UGT in October of last year to update public salaries. Public employees will already receive it in the payroll they receive this month of October and with retroactive effects to January of this year.

The pact established a salary increase of 3.5% in 2022, another of 2.5% for 2023 and a third of 1.5% for 2024.. However, in 2023 the remuneration could be raised by up to an additional 1% if inflation and nominal GDP growth reached certain levels.. As the year-on-year increase in prices in 2022 and September 2023 together have exceeded 6%, a salary improvement of 0.5% has been unlocked.

For an average public employee, a 0.5% increase in their salary will mean earning around 14 euros more gross per month (the average gross salary of public employees was 2,807 euros per month in 2021, according to the INE). In the October payroll, public employees will also receive the retroactive increase that corresponds to them in the months of January to September, so they will find themselves with a kind of 'paguilla' that can be around 140 euros gross.

Minister Montero has detailed that this salary improvement will mean a total cost for all public administrations (State, autonomous communities, local entities…) of 791 million euros. In the case of the General State Administration, the salary increase was already contemplated in the Budgets for 2023, so a regulatory change will not be necessary. Of course, the autonomies and city councils will have to address the increase “within all their powers,” said Montero.. In this sense, it is worth remembering that the agreement includes a salary increase of a maximum of 0.5%, so autonomies and city councils could opt for lower salary increases.

In addition, the Executive has also approved in this Council of Ministers the salary increases that it agreed with the lawyers of the Administration of Justice and with judges and prosecutors.. Minister Montero has clarified that the salary increases will be implemented “progressively, in different milestones at the end of this year and in the middle of next year to complete the entire agreement starting in July 2024.”