Jakob Suwalski and Giulia Branz (Scope Ratings) | Budget constraints faced by the autonomous regions make policy adjustments and new investments difficult. By the end of 2022, none of the regions met the 13% debt-to-GDP threshold in their fiscal framework, while the aggregate fiscal deficit worsened to 1.1% of GDP from 0.1% in 2021, contrasting with the reduction in the deficit of the general government, i.e. the central government plus…
The pandemic has added pressure on the spending of the Autonomous Communities, which represents a third of the public spending of all administrations. Around 68% of this expenditure borne by the regions goes on basic social services: health (37%), education (24.5%) and social protection (6.5%), affected both by the current health crisis and by the long-term impact of the progressive ageing of the population on spending and the low birth rate on income. A study by Funcas outlines a possible scenario for regional social spending and identifies the headings that will be under the greatest upward pressure in the coming years.
Although most of Spain’s public debt belongs to the central Administration, the debt held by the 17 autonomous regions is by no means insignificant: it accounts for 25% of Spain’s GDP, way above the 16% it represented just five years ago. Many regions are now returning to the debt markets.
Madrid should never be afraid of the conflicts that interventions will spark, to be sure, but it will only succeed when the regional government has a clear poor reputation managing its own finances.
By Joaquim Clemente, valenciaplaza.com | All finance activity planned at the autonomous government of the Valencia region must now be approved by the Spanish Treasury in Madrid before going ahead. If regions in Spain that have sought a bailout from the central administration follow the Valencia pattern, they would have seen their financial rights severely limited as a condition to tap loans from the state agency ICO, a Treasury’s credit…
Hundreds of thousands of retail investors may share an uncomfortable feeling these days, that of being trapped under their holdings of what once was commercialised as ‘patriotic bonds’. Unloading them is proving a difficult task. While most sovereign and sub-sovereign debt securities in the secondary market move millions of euros, daily trade volumes of short-term paper issued in 2011 and 2012 by Spanish regional governments rarely reach the modest figure of €50,000….
By Tania Suárez, in Madrid | On Tuesday afternoon, July 31, the Council for Fiscal and Financial Policy (CPFF by its Spanish initials) will meet the central government in order to establish the deficit target and debt levels of each region in Spain for 2013. It is expected that the regions will adapt themselves to the general targets, which marked a mutual deficit of 0.7% for 2013, 0.1% for 2014…
By Tania Suárez, in Madrid | Things are getting even more difficult in Spain. First, the recently announced measures of adjustment, then the protests from the mining industry and now it is the turn of the Spanish regions. Minister of finance Cristóbal Montoro said that he wouldn’t be as permissive as Brussels has been with Spain; that the government will not extend the period for the regions to achieve the fiscal…
LONDON | Those regions in Spain and Italy awarded better risk qualifications than their countries as a whole have overcome the latest turmoil in the euro zone without difficulties. Fitch Ratings issued Wednesday a positive comment on the Italian and Spanish subnationals rated above the sovereign. The agency said that their debt and debt service coverage ratios with the operating balance have largely remained in line with those of similarly…
MADRID | Analysts at Barclays in Spain felt so shocked by how little knowledge some market participants can display about the actual situation of the Spanish economy, that decided to act. Why Spain does so poorly compared to the rest of Europe? Well, does it? This is the quick note they wrote on Friday aimed at lending a hand to “some brokers and fund managers, mostly foreign, [who] seem to…