The Government will complete in the next three weeks the key procedures to present the Budgets in September and on time for the first time this legislature

Without sufficient majorities in the Congress of Deputies, but with the firm intention of complying, this time, with the constitutional mandate, the Government of Pedro Sánchez is preparing to complete during this month of July the last procedures to present a Budget project in September. “The intention is to meet the deadlines,” insist sources from the team of the Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo.

The extension of public accounts for three consecutive fiscal years since the beginning of the legislature, after the general elections of 23-J, has meant that the current composition of Congress has not had the opportunity to debate or vote on a General State Budget, the main legislative project of any Government.

According to Juan José Rubio Guerrero, Professor of Public Finance, Spain is currently facing “an unusual situation in consolidated parliamentary democracies” due to the budgetary “anomaly” that implies that the Cortes Generales “have been deprived of debating, amending, approving, and scrutinizing the Executive’s economic policy.”

A meeting with the autonomous communities and several extraordinary plenary sessions

The next step will come this Monday. The Ministry of Finance has convened the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council to present to the autonomous communities and local corporations the deficit, debt, and spending rule targets for the period 2027-2029.

The Executive will thus set how much administrations can spend, the volume of debt they can assume, and the deficit they can register during the next fiscal years. These references condition the financing of public services.

In this meeting, the Ministry of Finance will once again face the communities governed by the Popular Party, which are the majority in the body. However, the Ministry has practically guaranteed the approval of the fiscal path, as it has half of the votes and only needs the support of one autonomous community to push it through.

Subsequently, the spending ceiling and the deficit path must be ratified by Congress. If all goes as planned, the vote will take place in the extraordinary plenary session convened for next July 14, as agreed last week by the Board of Spokespersons, which also reserved July 23 as an alternative date in case it was necessary to extend the deadlines.

Once these procedures are completed, the Ministry of Finance will be able to elevate the project to the Council of Ministers before sending it to the Congress of Deputies.

With this, the Government intends to have all preliminary steps resolved to present the Budgets during the month of September. If successful, it would be the first time in this legislature that the Executive meets the constitutional deadlines, which require the project to be presented before the beginning of October.

Credit modifications betray the Government

The accumulated volume of credit modifications —the budgetary items that the Government redistributes among ministries without the need for new parliamentary approval— reached 32.2 billion euros at the end of April 2026. This record figure is a direct consequence of the budget extension and has forced the Executive to continuously resort to adjustments to adapt the accounts to current needs.

According to data periodically published by the General State Intervention, this volume has increased by more than 60% compared to the previous year. For experts, this increase shows that the current Budgets no longer respond to the country's needs in 2026.

One of the latest examples occurred in the Council of Ministers on May 19, which authorized a credit transfer of 124 million euros to the Ministry of Defense to address “a series of investments and programs in defense matters.”

The Budgets, the last test before the polls

The Government's parliamentary partners, especially Junts and the PNV, are increasingly skeptical about the possibility that Pedro Sánchez can complete the legislature, as the president has reiterated on numerous occasions. In fact, both Catalan and Basque nationalists have already publicly called for an early election.

“Mr. Sánchez, we are swimming in the last lap of the legislature. Present the budgets, it is your obligation. But if you cannot reach a sufficient agreement in this Chamber, dissolve it and call elections,” Maribel Vaquero, spokesperson for the PNV, stated a few weeks ago from the Congress rostrum.

Her words summarize the political scenario facing the Government: either Budgets or elections.

Sánchez will be able to occupy a good part of the political debate during the coming months with the budget negotiation. However, if the accounts do not manage to come into force before the beginning of the new year, the possibility of an early election could gain strength and resolve the future of the legislature during the first quarter of next year.