Yesterday, the Congress of Deputies approved the Royal Decree-Law extending certain measures to deal with the economic and social consequences of the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and adopting urgent measures in the fiscal, energy and social fields.
The delegate of the Government in La Rioja, Beatriz Arraiz Nalda, has explained that within this Royal Decree-Law, a package of measures is included that aims to strengthen public services, which is instrumentalized through the updating of so-called account deliveries, that is, resources of the system of financing both regional and local.
In this regard, Arraiz Nalda stressed that “the autonomous communities and municipalities will receive record funding from the State this year”.
Specifically, in 2024 the autonomous communities will receive a total of 134,658 million euros in account deliveries, the highest figure in the history of our country and representing an increase of 8.3% compared to the volume of 2023.
As he pointed out, “this amount corroborates the commitment of the Government of Spain with sufficient resources for all territories, so that they can provide the highest quality public services for which they are responsible.”
As for the autonomous community of La Rioja, the delegate has specified that during this year of 2024 she will receive a total of 1.256 billion euros in account deliveries. As with the country as a whole, this figure is record and represents an increase of 7.8% compared to the 1.165 billion euros received for this same concept in 2023.
But, in addition, he explained that this year is the liquidation of the financing system of the year 2022. In this way, the forecasts indicate that La Rioja, for this concept, will receive 196 million euros.
These two amounts mean that the Rioja community will have a total of 1,452 million euros from the regional funding system.
Taking into account the six years of government of President Pedro Sánchez, La Rioja will have had resources worth 7,012 million euros. This figure includes, in addition to regular funding, the distribution of extraordinary funds that the Executive mobilized to counteract the effects of COVID-19.
As the delegate has detailed, this amount means that, “in the last six years, our autonomous community will have had funding 40.2% higher than that received during the term of Mariano Rajoy, that is, 2,010 million more”.
Therefore, he added that “it can be confirmed that La Rioja has improved its financing with Executive and that there is no precedent that a central government has given so much support to our autonomous community”.
Likewise, with a view to 2025, Arraiz Nalda has advanced that the Government of Spain will continue to support the autonomous communities and will once again raise the payments on account, once again exceeding the greater resources that are allocated for this. “This continues the policy of providing the territories with sufficient funding to provide the best public services to the citizens,” he confirmed.
Local entities
In the case of local entities, this year they will also receive the largest deliveries on account of their history, specifically 88.6 million euros, plus the settlement of 2022, which is 18.1 million euros.
In the case of the municipalities of Rioja, the expected amounts for Logroño amount to 50.1 million for the concept of delivery on account plus 9.7 million for the liquidation of 2022. The rest of the local entities in Rioja will receive 46.9 million euros for the two concepts. Taking into account these data, the variation with respect to 2023 of all local entities in La Rioja is 23.2%.
With all this, “both autonomous communities and local entities will receive the greatest funding we have had throughout our democracy,” he insisted.
Congressional Positioning
The delegate in La Rioja has stressed that “these updates of the deliveries on account and the financial support of the central government to the autonomies and local entities are an example of how she understands that Spain should be and how the role of communities and municipalities is fundamental”.
Therefore, and taking into account the position of the political parties yesterday during the vote on this issue, he has assessed that “however much noise some people want to impose because, probably, they have no more project for Spain than confrontation, the Executive headed by Pedro Sánchez will continue to work for the common good of the citizens in the territories, improving the daily lives of the people and, therefore, approving powerful and effective measures, such as the increase of regional funding and local entities.”
In this sense, he has criticized that it is incomprehensible, and he must explain why, that the PP did not vote yesterday in favour of this Royal Decree that provides for the significant increase in payments on account and whose ultimate objective is to improve the public services of the Rioja and Rioja by having greater funding for the regional and local administrations.
“The People’s Party should explain why it maintains this position that goes against the interests of La Rioja. Instead of constantly seeking confrontation, it would have to support measures that really mean an improvement in regional and local funding and, therefore, public services,” he concluded.
Path of stability
Finally, and to answer the journalists’ questions about the rejection yesterday in Congress of the path of stability, the delegate recalled that the last Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy approved the new fiscal path with the abstention of the autonomous communities governed by the Popular Party. However, this same party, yesterday voted against giving greater fiscal margin to autonomous communities and municipalities, thus harming all citizens.
This rejection of the approval of the path of stability implies removing two tenths of fiscal margin to the autonomous communities in 2025 and 2026. That means an adjustment of 3 billion in each of those years, that is, a total cost of 6 billion.
In addition, it granted a tenth more fiscal margin in 2025 to municipalities and two tenths more in 2026. Therefore, voting against it has a negative impact on municipalities of 1.5 billion in 2025 and 3 billion in 2026. In total, 4.5 billion.
For this reason, Arraiz Nalda has specified that the parties that have voted against the path impose an adjustment of 10.500 million to autonomous communities and municipalities, “amount that citizens will pay and, therefore, a totally irresponsible act.”