He assures that the negotiations with ERC and PNV to carry out the 2023 accounts are going “well”
MADRID, 19 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Minister of Finance and Public Function, María Jesús Montero, has shown this Wednesday her “surprise” at the fact that the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF) has criticized the General State Budgets for 2023 for the “prudence” with the that have been made.
“I am surprised that the authority responsible for fiscal consolidation criticizes the Budget for being prudent, but I prefer to stay with that criticism than not when it is made in the opposite direction,” Montero stressed in statements to TVE collected by Europa Press.
Thus, the minister has pointed out that the Government “has been prudent” in forecasting income, which is why it has sent two scenarios to Brussels: the first, more prudent, and a second scenario where a volume of income is reserved for finance the extension of all those anti-crisis measures that are considered necessary to maintain once they are evaluated in November or later.
Montero has assured that the budget project has “very clear” what is structural spending, that is, “everything that is going to be done yes or yes”, such as the continuity of free public transport, reserving financing in case some measures of the already adopted are extended for a longer time, as could be the case of tax reductions in the electricity bill.
“If you listen to the usual criticisms of the Budgets, I prefer this year’s criticism, in which prudence is marked so as not to mortgage future generations”, said the minister.
Regarding the warnings from the Bank of Spain about the revaluation of pensions with the CPI, Montero stressed that “from the first moment” it was clearly stated that pensions were going to rise with the CPI because that was established by law.
Regarding the maximum pensions, the minister has reiterated that they must also be revalued with inflation, since they do not reach 40,000 euros per year, they are capped and, if they do not rise with the CPI, they could lead their recipients to take out private insurance , stop contributing to the public system and “put the pensions of the most vulnerable at risk.
Asked if the ERC and PNV will finally present a complete amendment to the 2023 Budgets, the minister trusts that an agreement can be reached that prevents it.
“The negotiations are going well (…) I would like the negotiations to be short, but I hope that everyone understands that these public accounts are necessary. We are going for these third consecutive budgets,” he declared.
Montero hopes that the PNV and ERC do not present a complete amendment, as well as that “there is no Chinese on the way” during the parliamentary processing of the Budgets.
