The Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF) publishes the Report on the Basic Lines of the 2021 Budgets of the Autonomous Communities (CCAA), in which it estimates that the subsector’s deficit will close 2021 at 0.8% of GDP, from the 0.6% that is expected to be reached in 2020.
In the report, AIReF also warns of the possible imbalances that may occur in the budget balance of the regions as of 2022 due to the impact of the negative settlements of the Autonomous Financing System (SFA), the lower amount of linked funds to the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR) and the absence of extraordinary transfers from the State. This situation could worsen with the consolidation of a significant part of the expenditure incurred in 2020 and 2021.
AIReF’s deficit estimate for 2021 is more positive than that forecast in the Budget Plan, which places the regional deficit reference rate at 1.1%. The difference is fundamentally due to the assumptions about the degree of consolidation of the spending associated with the health crisis, since AIReF considers that, given its temporary nature and the evolution of the pandemic forecast in its central scenario, part of these expenses do not would be replicated in 2021.
For the individual analysis, AIReF has assumed a distribution of the extraordinary transfer from the State to reduce the deficit of the Autonomous Communities, which would represent 1.1% of regional GDP for each one. Under this criterion, nine Autonomous Communities could close in 2021 with a deficit lower than the set reference, four with a deficit similar to -1.1% and another four would reach a higher deficit.