The President of the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF), Cristina Herrero, gave a speech today as part of the Digital Leadership Programme for General Government, organised by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IEF) and the School of Industrial Organisation (EOI). The President explained AIReF’s role in the Spanish economy as a key agent in the fiscal debate that provides independent and objective analysis which reduces the information asymmetry between public managers and citizens.
The President stated that AIReF was set up in 2013 thanks to a European impetus and with an initial mission focused on fiscal supervision. Over the years, AIReF has adapted its activity as a national supervisor to the economic context and consolidated its evaluation work, which is now a permanent function of the institution. AIReF currently carries out its mandate through these two main functions: supervision and evaluation.
The President also explained the main features of the reform of the European fiscal governance framework, approved on April 30th. This new framework, she stated, seeks to overcome the limitations of the previous model in terms of the lack of national ownership, complexity and the procyclicality of fiscal policy. It also strengthens the role of Independent Fiscal Institutions such as AIReF, entrusting them with a new mission: that of analysing the consistency, coherence and effectiveness of the national framework.
Cristina Herrero reviewed AIReF’s latest publications on fiscal supervision: the Report on the Main Lines of the Budget for 2025 and the Report on the Medium-Term Structural-Fiscal Plan 2025-2028 (MTP). In the Report on the Main Lines, AIReF revises growth upwards in the short term and maintains the medium-term economic and fiscal outlook. In the Report on the MTP, AIReF sets out its deficit and debt forecasts that differ from those of the Government and concludes that the first fiscal plans are more of a political commitment than a medium-term fiscal strategy. In terms of evaluation, the President reviewed the studies carried out and those underway.
According to Cristina Herrero, in just ten years, AIReF has established itself as a benchmark in the fiscal sphere and, more recently, in the area of public policy evaluation, thanks to its unbiased analysis and complete transparency. In the new European fiscal framework, AIReF must also play a key role as a link between the European and national frameworks to support the development of the content of MTPs and the transfer of the European Directive to the national fiscal framework.
The Digital Leadership for General Government training programme is aimed at training public managers, in particular, at strengthening their leadership and digital skills to manage effectively and strategically.
