In accordance with the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court, the State may provide financial resources for the development of actions that fall within the competence of the Autonomous Communities, for their management by them.

This possibility has a specific regulation, basically provided for in article 86 of the General Budget Law. This article was incorporated into the General Budget Law following the adoption by the Constitutional Court of Judgment 13/1992, of 6 February, in which the Court recognized the State’s spending capacity and its powers to allocate appropriations for the financing of regional programmes and activities, although always in line with the regional executive scope.

The procedure regulated in the Law differentiates two phases in its formalization. The first is aimed at establishing objective criteria for the distribution of available credit among the Autonomous Communities competent or affected by the matter, as well as the weighting indices of each of the chosen criteria. This phase takes place in cooperation at the meeting of the corresponding Sectoral Conference, which allows a debate not only on the criteria in the strict sense, but also on the aims and objectives promoted by the State.