Brussels, 19/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 19 April, the Commissioner for the Euro, Valdis Dombrovskis, said that no political decision had as yet been made over giving Spain extra time to bring down its public deficit.
At the end of March, the Spanish national statistical institute announced that the national deficit in nominal terms stood at 5.2% of GDP, or nearly 1% over the target of 4.2% laid down at European level for 2015 (see EUROPE 11522). Spain is still under an official obligation to bring its deficit below the 3% of national GDP mark next year.
Addressing Parliament on Tuesday, the acting Spanish Minister for the economy, Luis De Guindos, rectified Spain's pursued trajectory, announcing a deficit of 3.6% of GDP for 2016 and 2.9% for 2017. Hence the need for the acting Spanish government to negotiate an extra year with its European counterparts to consolidate the public finances of the country.
The daily newspaper El País reported that the Spanish authorities and the European Commission had agreed on a grace period of at least a year, in a stage which is more or less inevitable given the scale of the challenge. In exchange, additional savings efforts will be unavoidable.
“ As regards Spain's fiscal performance, we know that Spain has been above its fiscal target in 2015 by a non-negligible amount. Of course it also affects 2016 forecasts and 2016 outcome”, Dombrovskis acknowledged. He stressed that “no conclusion has been taken at this stage” on changes to the budgetary trajectory required of Spain, stressing the need to wait for both the definitive budgetary figures for 2015, to be produced by the statistical office of the EU (Eurostat) on Thursday 21 April, and the spring economic forecasts, which the Commission will present in early May. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)