Brussels confirms that Spain will meet the deficit target this year and raises the GDP growth forecast to 2.1% this year

The European Commission estimates that Spain’s deficit will fall to 3% in 2024, in line with government forecasts and thus fulfilling the objective set by Brussels for this year. At the same time, the Community Executive has raised the GDP growth forecast by four tenths, to 2.1%, meaning that Spain will remain the EU country that is growing the most within the group of large economies.

In 2025, the Commission’s deficit forecast is 2.8% in 2025, three tenths above national projections, but notes a downward path driven by the favorable evolution of income and the progressive elimination of energy-related measures, reports Ep.

In this way, Brussels has endorsed the update of the Government’s fiscal forecasts, which indicate that Spain will comply with the target of 3% of GDP required by the new fiscal rulesdespite the fact that it closed the 2023 fiscal year with a 3.6% deficit, which will be taken into account for the possible opening of files for excessive deficit in June.

Following the publication of the European Commission report, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, stated that the forecasts “endorse” the economic policy of the Executive, so “Spain is going in the right direction.” For his part, the Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, has celebrated the economic prospects in the face of the “catastrophic messages”, which have been failed to comply “repeatedly” every time data is published.

That 3% deficit is “particularly important,” according to Corps, in the context of European fiscal rules since That is the threshold between having increased vigilance – being in the corrective arm – or not having it.. Thus, he has said that he will work with the European Commission regarding medium-term forecasts, with the aim of establishing the required four-year fiscal plan that all countries will have to present in the month of September.

The spring economic forecasts, published this Wednesday, also anticipate that the debt/GDP ratio will continue to gradually decrease from 105.5%, which both the national and community Executives predict for 2024, until the 104.8% that Brussels estimates in 2025, seven tenths more than the Government’s forecast. Of course, these predictions place Spain among the five economies – along with Belgium, Greece, France and Italy – in which public debt is expected to continue to be higher than 100% of GDP by 2025.

However, the Commission’s predictions are more optimistic than those of the Government regarding the growth of the economy, since they raise it to 2.1% in 2024 – one tenth above the Executive’s forecast and four more than in the previous forecasts. -, but they point to a “small slowdown” in 2025, up to 1.9%one tenth less than what was forecast in winter.