The Spanish finance minister, Luis de Guindos, believes that his country will avoid the suspension of part of the European structural funds allocated to it, as Spain is in line with the stipulated budgetary requirements.
He listed on Tuesday 11 October his reasons for expecting some indulgence from the European Commission, in the same way as his country and Portugal managed to avoid a fine this summer, even though they had not taken sufficient action to correct their government deficits between 2013 and 2015 (see EUROPE 11605). First of all, the public deficit will be brought down to 4.6% of GDP in 2016, he said. The government is also working in two main areas: increasing corporate tax, with a proposal currently under discussions at the national parliament, and completing the 2017 budget, which will be presented this Friday.
On the latter point, the minister said that he did not anticipate figures wildly different from those already put forward by the Commission for Spain to bring its deficit below 3% of GDP by 2018 (4.6% of GDP in 2016, 3.1% in 2017 and 2.2% in 2018). With a score of more than 3% of GDP, Spain has growth levels of double the average performance in the eurozone, he pointed out. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)