The Government's effort to not return VAT collected in 2017 to communities has caused an autonomous rebellion that crystallized yesterday, in all its crudeness , during the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council meeting. Under ordinary conditions, this is the body responsible for harmonizing fiscal policy in Spain. However, the assignments of the Government before the independentistas have discredited the multilateral negotiation in favor of autonomies like Catalonia, which already has a bilateral table to achieve a privileged treatment. The absence of Pere Aragonès in the aforementioned meeting is a gesture that reveals the door of the Generalitat to be treated like the rest of regional governments . In any case, the crux of the open struggle between the Government and the Autonomous Communities to autonomous financing and, in particular, to the rebellion led by the PP communities on account of the non-payment of VAT on December three years ago.

The Ministry of Finance took advantage of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council to communicate the new path of stability for the coming years, which establishes a more flexible objective of regional deficit of 0.2% of GDP this year, of 0.1% in 2021 and budget balance since fiscal year 2022. The path approved by the PP established budget balance for the autonomous communities as of 2020. The department that María Jesús Montero directs has given the regions two additional tenths in the deficit target as compensation for the 2.5 billion euros they did not charge. However, communities do not want a greater fiscal margin, but to collect what they are owed . Regional executives have already computed this credit in their Budgets three years ago. That the Treasury does not pay them now what it owes them has a very negative impact on the public accounts of the communities, responsible for managing the bulk of the welfare state.

It is irresponsible that the Treasury tries to compensate the autonomous communities with more deficit and debt. In fact, what the autonomous governments want is an income that compensates for the amounts they did not receive , which in the end is money from a tax paid by the citizens of the respective communities. To the complaint of the regions governed by the PP have been added some barons of the PSOE, such as García-Page or Lambán. The Valencian president, Ximo Puig, has been warmer. In any case, the decision of the communities that feel aggrieved to go to court to litigate for VAT constitutes a serious institutional shock on a key economic issue such as fiscal policy. The Government of Sanchez cannot punish the compliant regions while tilting the cervix before Torra by accessing the blackmail of the independentistas, which includes burdensome assignments in tax matters. The obligation of the Ministry of Finance is not to make partisan policy with the VAT refund. First, because it is unacceptable from the political point of view. Second, because it is unfair to the affected CCAA citizens. And third, because it pays for the institutional confrontation, which jeopardizes the achievement of the fiscal consolidation path.

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