• General elections.Sanchez puts pensions in campaign and will raise them December with the CPI with the government in office
  • General elections Pedro Sánchez has already committed more than 6,600 million to win votes

Officials will benefit in 2020 from the salary increase of at least 2%, which is included in the multi-year compensation improvements agreement. This has been transmitted by the Government of Pedro Sánchez to the union representatives, and this will be reflected in the budget plan that the Executive must send this week to Brussels , as confirmed by the Ministry of Finance.

Until now, and unlike what happened with pensions, the acting Executive had not committed to undertake this increase and the unions were already threatening to initiate mobilizations. The representatives understood that if there was a promise for pensioners, why not include in that measure the increase in public salaries that, in addition, was already agreed.

Specifically, the Ministry of Finance and Public Function that was then directed by Cristóbal Montoro agreed on a 2018-2020 plan that estimated that public salaries should rise by a fixed 2% next year, a figure to which a variable of up to 1 could be added , An additional 85% based on the growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the compliance with the deficit. However, to make the fixed rise effective on January 1, it is necessary that it be included in a General State Budget (PGE) or that, at least, there is a Government that can process a decree that validates it. And right now neither one thing nor another is possible .

But the Executive, aware of the remarkable weight that the vote of the officials has in the elections and before the opportunity to write down a new electoral argument, has transmitted to the unions that the rise will occur and that the objective is to be applied with the arrival of the new year . In the first place, because it considers that there is room for the new Government to leave the elections, and specifically one led by Pedro Sánchez, validates the rise. And second, because if this were not possible and the deadlines were extended, the way to do it would be sought. That is, the Executive would be willing to approve the increase by decree despite being in office and protecting, as in the case of pensions, in which it is a need for "extreme urgency and need."

Starting from this point, the Treasury will include this 2% improvement in the 2020 budget plan. The maximum deadline for sending this document to Europe is October 15, that is, tomorrow, and it should include the main economic policies, expected revenues and expenses. In the specific case of the salary increase to civil servants, the disbursement for all the Administrations amounts to a figure of around 3,000 million euros.

Macreoeconomic Chart

The documentation that the Government will send to Brussels must also include the macroeconomic chart, at which point the official growth forecast is collected. All the organizations and analysis firms are reviewing this variable downwards, with estimates of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rebound even less than 2% already for this year. This is the case of the Foundation of Savings Banks (Funcas), which last week updated its forecasts and reduced the growth forecast to 1.9%, while the Bank of Spain believes that the figure will be 2%. The Executive has not wanted to advance the figure that will be reflected in the table, but he has acknowledged that he is likely to be forced to reduce the official 2.2%.

On the other hand, what is resisted is to modify the deficit forecast. "We continue working to comply with it," said Finance Minister María Jesús Montero last week, although the same forecasts that estimate the economy will grow less also consider that the budget deviation will be higher. The last objective revised upwards and self-imposed by the Government is 2%. However, the Bank and also Funcas believe that the figure will be 2.4%, which would mean that the Executive would only reduce the deviation by one tenth and not meet the "commitment to reduce the deficit" that has so many times defended

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