The budget negotiation between the Basque Government and the opposition parties begins

The negotiation of the 2023 budgets between the Basque government and the opposition parties, except Vox, start this Wednesday with a predisposition to listen and calls for dialogue from all parties, but with distant positions.

The Minister of Economy and Finance, Pedro Azpiazu, who has already warned that there will be no structural changes in the 2023 budgets, will first meet with EH Bildu, the main opposition group and current budgetary partner of the Government, who makes a “bittersweet balance” of the agreement on the accounts reached last year. The abertzale coalition admits that the economic measures agreed upon at that time “have been fulfilled in general”, but not the “political commitments” aimed, for example, at improving the minimum wage and capping rental prices.

Despite this, EH Bildu will come with “reasoned, reasonable and feasible” proposals and “designed to reach minimum agreements” around “continuous and conservative” budgets that “are not worth facing the challenges of the country”, they have explained. the parliamentarians Maddalen Iriarte and Nerea Kortajerana.

EH Bildu will also put taxation on the table, an issue that appears to be “more difficult” to address in the Basque Country since in Navarra “the debate has been opened” and the coalition has reached an agreement with the Regional Government, while Here “the fiscal model agreed with the PP” is still in force.

Also Elkarrekin Podemos-IU will defend in his meeting with the counselor the need for a fiscal reform, although his main demand to favor the approval of the budgets will be that they include concrete measures for “the materialization” of the educational pact. The spokeswoman for the purple coalition, Miren Gorrotxategi, recalled that this pact establishes that in all schooling areas there must be a sufficient public offer, but in municipalities such as Usurbil, Lazkao, Ibarra, Loiu and Lapuebla there are no public centers.

Therefore, “specific mechanisms (in the budgets) that have also been foreseen in the educational pact, such as the publication of centers” are needed. “We will not get out of the educational pact but we demand that it be fulfilled and if the Government does not comply we will not support the law (which will emanate from it),” he warned.

The PP will also go to the meeting “with the best of intentions” although it believes that the Government will limit itself to explaining the accounts and believes that the “incentives” to introduce opposition proposals are “reduced” given its absolute majority in Parliament .

Like EH Bildu and Elkarrekin Podemos-IU, the PP also wants to talk about taxation, although with an opposite approach, since it advocates lowering taxes on families and companies so that this money can be used “to reactivate economic activity.”

The different tax claims of the opposition will not, however, be included in the budget negotiation, as the government spokesman, Bingen Zupiria, has warned, since the talks will be limited to the budgetary scope and competence of the Executive and taxation – he recalled – depends on the deputies.