The Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF) today held its 4th Annual Conference with the General Government (GG), focused on the application of the new fiscal framework that came into force on April 30th. The meeting was attended in person and online by more than 150 representatives of the different tiers of the GG. The President of AIReF, Cristina Herrero, opened the meeting by stating that AIReF is once again a meeting point for dialogue and the exchange of ideas with all tiers of government at a key moment when public finances have begun to operate under a new governance framework.
During her opening speech, Cristina Herrero pointed out that the first Medium-Term Structural-Fiscal Plans (MTPs) are not meeting the expectations generated and are raising doubts about the progress they might make in achieving the goals sought by the reform: greater national ownership, the need to make growth and sustainability compatible, and the simplification and greater transparency of fiscal supervision. The responsibility, in her opinion, is shared, as the regulations finally approved are minimal and many countries, such as Spain, have limited themselves to complying with these minimums.
In this regard, she considered that the Spanish MTP is a formalisation of the national fiscal commitment to European institutions, but not a true medium-term fiscal strategy. In her opinion, much remains to be done to ensure that this becomes the case: to specify the distribution of the medium-term commitments of each GG sub-sector, to provide a breakdown of the budgetary projections for each GG sub-sector and for the Sector as a whole, to seek consensus and debate in Parliament and to identify the measures to comply with the fiscal path on an annual basis. According to the President, in addition to these tasks, there is a need to adapt the national fiscal framework to the European framework and to transpose the National Fiscal Frameworks Directive before 2026.
I also regret AIReF’s very limited involvement in the start-up of the new framework. In Spain, AIReF has only been asked to endorse the macroeconomic scenario for the first two years of the MTP, despite the technical capacity of the institution to make important contributions. Conversely, she highlighted the consolidation of the evaluation stemming from the European Commission’s evaluation of the Spanish Plan, which requires a new spending review cycle when the current one comes to an end and calls on the Government to take measures based on the studies already completed.
The conference was structured in two round tables and a presentation by the Director of AIReF’s Economic Analysis Division, Esther Gordo, and the Director of the Budgetary Analysis Division, Ignacio Fernández-Huertas, on AIReF’s report on the MTP, published on November 5th. The first round table focused on the reform of the framework and included the Director-General of Economic Analysis of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Enterprise, Eduardo Aguilar, and the Head of the Secretariat of the European Fiscal Board, Martin Larch. The second focused on the implementation of the MTP from the point of view of the GG sub-sectors and included the Director-General of Social Security Organisation of the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Marta Morano; the Director-General of Budgets of the Regional Department of Economy, Finance and Employment of Madrid, Gregorio Moreno; and the Director of Economic Coordination of the General Comptroller of the City Council of Barcelona, Carmen Torres.
