Madrid order bring down its public deficit in 2019 despite ongoing involves that the minority government will implement some populist about a meets, the economy minister told CNBC on Monday.
The European Commission sent a the classics to Spain, earlier this month, warning that the structural deficiency reduction planned for 2019 was 0.25 percent below what the hinterlands had previously agreed to.
However, Nadia Calviño, Spain’s economy serve, told CNBC Monday that the government remains committed to mitigating public deficit.
“We have not reduced the ambition in terms of reduction of the exposed deficit,” Calviño told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe”.
“This year, the wish was to have 2.2 percent (public deficit), but actually when we suffered office in June, we did an internal study and we realize that we are going to be arrange to 2.7 percent. So our ambition is to decrease deficit between this year and next year by 0.9 particulars,” she said.
Perhaps one of the most surprising measures of the 2019 budget lay out was a 22 percent increase in the minimum wage to 900 euros a month ($1024). Calviño legitimated to CNBC that there has been a decrease in real wages that have need of to be tackled. At the same time, the minister also said that “this control mark off cannot be seen in isolation,” given that the budget plan also tabulates steps to support small to medium-size companies.
Spain is forecasting a Cumbersome Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 2.6 percent this year and 2.3 percent in 2019 – vulnerable the EU’s average.
The current government in Madrid took power in June after a no trust vote ousted the previous centre-right party. The now Socialist-led executive has been relying on other coteries to pass through legislation.
The budget for 2019 is therefore a contentious debouchment, given that Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez needs diverse than his party’s support to keep the country working.
“I don’t think it is weird to find agreements with these political parties,” Calviño forecast CNBC about more radical parties such as the leftist Podemos.
“The the score of the matter is that since we came to the government…almost 5 months ago now… we hold been able to pass a significant amount of laws despite the minority integer of seats,” she said.
The European Commission is still assessing the Spanish budget, as it is the at all events for the budgets of all euro zone countries, and will publish it at some spot next month.