AIReF says that information on more than 1,200 million is missing in the Budgets and that it hesitated to grant its endorsement

Regrets the “deficiencies in informative quality” of the General State Budget project for 2023The independent fiscal authority lowers its growth forecast for 2023 to 1.5% compared to the 2.1% of the Government Cristina Herrero has criticized that “part of the forecasts of closing income (for this year 2022) are not realistic”The president of the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF), Cristina Herrero, lamented this Tuesday in Congress the “deficiencies in information quality” of the draft General Budgets of the State of 2023, with a lack of information in terms of national accounting of more than 1,200 million euros, and has ensured that the body came to doubt whether to grant its endorsement. Thus, before the Budget Committee of the Lower House, to which he has gone to explain the new accounts, Herrero has acknowledged that “a deep debate” was raised in the body itself about what to do, since the law does not provide for a pronouncement on the macroeconomic chart published in July and on which the accounts were likely to be built. Then his forecast was for growth of 2%, compared to 2.7% for the Government, and now the worsening of the economic outlook lowers it to 1.5% by 2.1% of the Executive. In addition to claiming that this macroeconomic table has the endorsement of AIReF — “it is not that it endorses for no reason, it has to endorse the table to guarantee that the subsequent budgetary scenario is based on realistic forecasts–, Herrero has requested that it include a forecast of income and expenses, as well as fiscal policy measures. In the case of these accounts, the president of AIReF has criticized that “part of the forecasts of revenue closing (for this year 2022) are not realistic”. For Herrero, the Government’s decision to underestimate revenues in order to have a greater margin later – a decision made explicit by the Minister María Jesús Montero herself – “is not prudence”, based on the available liquidation data. that in the preparation of these accounts, and therefore the economic planning of the Government, the package of measures to deal with the energy and price crisis is not incorporated, even announcing additional measures “a week after the Budget is presented”. , Herrero misses “relevant information in terms of national accounting”, since the accounts do not incorporate it “neither in terms of adjustments nor in execution of the Recovery Plan”. “Yes, there is an execution forecast, but they are not national accounting data”, she specified, “they are budget data converted to national accounting terminology”. “It has been years since they have been published”, and has quantified that the lack of these adjustments “would amount to a little more than one percentage point of GDP”.