Source: European Parliament
The submission of the Member States’ draft budgetary plans and their assessment by the Commission (as established by Regulation (EU) 473/2013) is an important element in the fiscal surveillance.
Member States submit their draft budgetary plan for the forthcoming year by 15 October[1] and the Commission provides an opinion by end-November[2].
Member States are invited to take into account, in the process of adopting their budget law, the Commission opinion on their draft budgetary plan[3].
It may however happen that a government is unable to table a draft budget in national parliament by the usual deadlines. In these cases, the submission should as a rule take place at least one month before the draft budget law is planned to be adopted by the national parliament, except where to do so would prove not feasible due to the country-specific parliamentary approval calendar.
In the latter case, the submission should still take place in time to allow the Commission to adopt an informed opinion on the plan and the Eurogroup to hold a proper discussion well before the budget law is planned to be adopted by the national parliament[4].
The Commission continuously monitors fiscal developments in Member States. It takes into account all fiscal developments and fiscal measures when it prepares and publishes its macroeconomic forecasts, including fiscal accounts.
The Commission confirms that, while it has already received the Spanish medium-term fiscal structural plan[5], it has not yet received a draft budgetary plan for 2025.
The Commission raises the attention of the Honourable Member that the said Recital 39 of Regulation 2024/1263 indicates that the Commission should, when providing its opinion on the draft budgetary plan, assess whether the draft budgetary plan is consistent with the expenditure path set by the Council Recommendation that endorses the medium-term fiscal structural plan.
- [1] Art 6(1) of Regulation (EU) 473/2013.
- [2] Art 7(1) of Regulation (EU) 473/2013.
- [3] Recital 21 of Regulation (EU) 473/2013.
- [4] Moreover, Regulation 473/2013 (Cf Art 4(3)) establishes that, while the budget for central government should be adopted by end-year, the Member States should have in place reversionary budget procedures to be applied if the budged is not adopted or fixed upon by 31 December.
- [5] https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/document/download/45e0463e-1216-459a-820a-c7eb9381f27d_es?filename=national_medium-term_fiscal-structural_plan_spain_es.pdf&prefLang=en