The President of the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF), Cristina Herrero, participates today in the Tax Director Summit organised by EY in Malaga, where she shared the institution’s economic and fiscal outlook, as well as the challenges facing the Spanish economy in the medium and long term.
The President spoke with the partner responsible for Corporate Development and Institutional Relations at EY, Adolfo Zunzunegui, in which she emphasised the importance of public action being as predictable as possible in a context in which uncertainty has been a feature of economic life for some years now and in which the sources of risk are expanding and even worsening.
In this regard, Cristina Herrero highlighted the usefulness of AIReF’s publications, which provide objective data and evidence that can facilitate decision-making. In particular, she highlighted the long-term projections included in the recently published Opinion on the Long-term Sustainability of the General Government and the identification and quantification made by the Institution in the Opinion on Fiscal Risks, published at the start of last month.
During the summit, Adolfo Zunzunegui and Cristina Herrero discussed some of the challenges facing public finances, such as the need to increase spending on defence to meet European commitments or writing-off regional debt. They also spoke of the need to frame these challenges within the new European fiscal framework which, according to the President of AIReF, has not met the expectations of the reform.
In fact, she stressed that the Structural-Fiscal Plan, presented by the Government last October within the framework of this new regulation, cannot be considered a genuine medium-term fiscal strategy. Thus, important work remains to be done to ensure its consistency with European regulations, such as specifying targets by sub-sector and adapting the national fiscal framework.
