Commitment fulfilled. The Ministry of Finance has finally released the raw data used to calculate fiscal balances, aimed at determining the gap between what autonomous regions contribute through taxes and what they receive in the form of transfers, investments, and subsidies. It was one of the commitments made by the ruling party to secure support from regional parties in approving key emergency decrees addressing the crisis. Regional authorities assert they will review the data with independent experts and will apply a prudent approach before confirming whether all necessary information has been disclosed to compute the balance accurately.
The central government had not published these figures for more than a decade, although in 2018 partial information was provided, according to the Generalitat. The most recent territorial balance sheets prepared by the Economics Department, based on years 2020 and 2021, showed a widening fiscal deficit—meaning higher state contributions than what the region receives—nearing 10 percent of GDP, up from 8.5 percent in 2019. The gap between state spending and investment and what is raised locally reached 21.982 billion euros in 2021, equal to 9.6 percent of GDP; and 20.772 billion euros in 2020, equal to 9.8 percent of GDP. These figures are among the highest on record since 1986, the earliest year with data, and translate to about 2,831 euros per inhabitant, according to these calculations.
Then, the Minister of Economy, Natàlia Mas, reaffirmed criticisms of the Finance Ministry over a lack of transparency. She linked these concerns to the execution data for territorialized state investment in the second half of 2022, which should have been published in May of the following year. In fact, the data for the first half of 2023 were published later, also with delays.
The Government of Catalonia, led by ERC, maintains that chronic fiscal deficits constrain the region’s capacity to invest and spend, calling the balance a dated and arbitrary measure that repeatedly fails to reflect the real level of state investment in Catalonia.
Tracing back to the first version of these balances during José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s term (PSOE) in 2008, which used data from 2005, publication never followed. The PP, at the direction of then Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro, revised the system and set the imbalance at 2012 levels, reaching 3.75 percent of GDP and 7.439 billion euros in absolute terms.
These figures were produced by the second set of territorial accounts compiled by a group of experts led by Ángel de la Fuente, named by the Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro. In the 2011 report, which replaced the earlier concept of fiscal balances, Catalonia’s discrepancy was calculated at 8.455 billion euros, or 4.35 percent of GDP.