The Plenary Session of the Senate has rejected this Monday by a large majority the five general vetoes to the bill of General State Budgets (PGE) of 2023 presented by the parliamentary groups of PP, Junts, Ciudadanos, Vox and UPNTherefore, the public accounts continue their processing in the Upper House.
The rejection of the vetoes has been possible thanks to simple majority held by the PSOE in the Upper House, with 113 seats out of the total of 265and the support of other formations, which has allowed the addition of at least 148 votes against the vetoes in each of the five votes.
Thus, the majority of the parties that have already supported the accounts in Congress have joined the votes of the Socialists, such as ERC (14 votes), PNV (ten) or EH Bildu (two). These have also been joined by other formations such as Más Madrid, PRC, Més per Mallorca, Geroa Bai, the Agrupación Socialista Gomera, the Aragonese Party, Compromís or CC, while Teruel Existe has opted to abstain.
In this way, after passing its first process in the Senate with ease, the new accounts continue your process with the vote this same Tuesday of the 87 vetoes to the sections of the Budget project, which will also foreseeably be rejected by the majority of the left.
In the event that the Budgets continue their processing in the Senate, the Report will meet on Wednesday, December 14, when the opinion of the commission will also be carried out. Once this procedure has been completed, the groups can present their individual votes until the 12:00 noon on Friday, December 16 and the processing of the Budgets in plenary would be in the session that begins on Tuesday, December 20, when they could be definitively approved if no change is introduced to the text that comes from Congress.
Montero says that the PGE will serve to avoid the recession
During the debate on the vetoes this Monday in the Upper House, the Minister of Finance and Public Function, Maria Jesus Monterohas defended the third and last public accounts of the legislature and has ensured that, on this occasion, they will allow Spain to avoid the technical recession next year and place its economic growth above the European average.
“We have realistic public accounts that will allow us to deal with the the year 2023 and that take us away from the possibility of recession that some countries are experiencing”, Montero stressed. The Executive maintains a growth forecast for the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for 2023 of 2.1%, which would be above forecasts of the main economies of the euro area, although it exceeds the estimates of the different national and international organizations.
In addition, the minister has also referred to the reduction of the public deficit, whose projection will be 3.9% in 2023 and 2.9% for 2025; as well as the public debt forecast, which Montero estimates will fall to a debt/GDP ratio of 110% by 2025. In summary, Montero has praised the public accounts project, whose objective is to provide “security, stability and confidence” to the population at a time of uncertainty as a result of the war in Ukraine, which is having a “very high” cost, both in human terms and due to Russia’s “energy blackmail”.
