The Government of the Canary Islands sets the spending ceiling for 2025 and foresees a surplus

The Government Council of the Canary Islands has approved this week the non-financial spending limit for 2025, which is set at 11,604 million euros, an increase of 302 million compared to 2024, 2.68% more.

Of this expense, 7,580 million come from the autonomous financing system, which grows by 2.7%, and the rest from tax collection by the Canarian financing block, European funds and 72 million euros contributed by the central administration for other concepts.

The Minister of Finance of the Government of the Canary Islands, Matilde Asián, reported after the meeting of the Governing Council that it is expected to end 2025 with a surplus of 439 million euros which, in application of the Budget Stability Law, cannot be incorporated into current spending.

Asián made a call to the Government of Spain to make the spending rule more flexible, as authorized by the European Commission, so that the Canary Islands, which has no problem with deficit or excessive debt, can allocate this surplus to spending on essential services or to reduce taxes.

The minister ruled out that if this flexibility does not occur, the IGIC in the Canary Islands, one of the electoral commitments, can be reduced.

The minister detailed that of the funds that the Canary Islands will receive from the State in 2025 as autonomous financing, 7,580 million euros in total, 6,594 correspond to payments on account and 986 million for the settlement of 2023. In total, that is 202 million euros more than in this year, 2.7% more.

Asián recalled that the deficit target for the entire State in 2025 is 2.5% of GDP, of which 2.2% is reserved for the general state administration, 0.2% for Social Security and 0.1% for the autonomous communities.

Since the Canary Islands will have a surplus, this limit does not affect it, nor does the debt limit, which is lower than the maximum allowed of 13% of GDP.

Matilde Asián also spoke about the principle of agreement between the Government and ERC for unique financing for Catalonia and assured that the announcement has been received with consternation and surprise.

It seems that one of the regions included in the common autonomous financing regime is leaving the system without the other regions that are in it being informed, when that affects everyone, she denounced.

In addition, she recalled that the Government of Spain must guarantee solidarity and redistribution of spending among all regions, because all citizens have the right to the same quality in the public services they receive.

"It affects us in the Canary Islands a lot, because the financing costs of public services are higher" as it is an island and remote region, she recalled.