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Spain’s parliament approves deficit reduction measures

Spanish lawmakers approved on Thursday measures to reduce the public deficit and keep it under the target agreed with the European Union.

Published: 21 October 2016 09:50 CEST

Spain's parliament approves deficit reduction measures

Photo: Images Money/Flickr

Spain's caretaker conservative Popular Party government could not legally make cuts to the 2016 budget, so it had to seek parliament's approval for alternative measures to attain the public deficit target of 4.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

The principal measure is a modification for early collection of corporate tax, which is hoped will bring in €8 billion in added revenue.

Socialist deputies demanded a reform of the budget stability law, but voted in favour of the bill, ensuring its passage. They joined lawmakers from the Popular Party and the centrist Ciudadanos party.

Spain sent Brussels last week its draft 2017 budget that acknowledges the country won't be able to hit the target of cutting the deficit to 3.1 percent of GDP, instead seeing a reduction to 3.6 percent.

Madrid said that the next government would have to decide on what additional measures to take.

The 4.6 percent and 3.1 percent targets were set in August when the European Commission let Spain off the hook for overshooting its deficit pledges, with the country at risk of stiff fines and cuts in aid funds.

Since the Spanish economy tanked in 2008 the country's public deficit has overshot the targets set by Brussels to return it to the EU limit of 3.0 percent.

Spain is being run by a government without full powers after inconclusive elections in December and June that saw the Popular Party win but without an absolute majority and other parties fail to forge a rival coalition.

New elections will need to be called if a deal is not reached to swear in a government by the end of this month.

Who is Begoña Gómez? Spanish PM's partner thrust into spotlight

“We are a team, and as a team we row in the same direction,” Gómez, 49, said during a 2016 television interview.

The couple put that unity on display after a Madrid court said Wednesday that it had opened a preliminary investigation into Gómez for suspected influence peddling and graft.

The move came in response to a complaint from the anti-corruption group Manos Limpias (Clean Hands), which is close to the far right.

Sánchez swiftly announced that he was suspending his duties to assess whether he would remain in office.

READ ALSO: What happens and who takes over if Spain’s Prime Minister resigns?

“I am not naïve. I am aware that they are bringing charges against Begoña, not because she has done anything illegal, because they know full well that’s not true, but because she’s my wife,” he said in a four-page letter posted on X.

“We often forget that behind politicians there are people. And I’m not ashamed to say it, I’m a man who is deeply in love with his wife,” Sánchez added, saying his wife was the victim of constant “mudslinging”.

Fundraising

Born in 1975 in Bilbao in Spain’s northern Basque Country, Gómez is under investigation because of her ties to several private companies that received government funding or won public contracts.

Online news site El Confidencial said she had met twice with Javier Hidalgo, CEO of the Spanish tourism group Globalia which owns Air Europa, when the carrier was in talks with the government to secure a huge bailout after the plunge in air traffic due to the Covid-19 crisis.

At the time, Gómez was running IE Africa Center, a foundation linked to Madrid’s Instituto de Empresa (IE) business school, which signed a sponsorship agreement with Globalia in 2020. Gómez left the post in 2022.

With a degree in marketing from Madrid’s private university Esic and a master’s in management, Gómez has specialised over the years in fundraising, particularly for foundations and NGOs.

Her career has taken her to a number of positions, including at business consultancy Inmark Europa and at Madrid’s Complutense University.

Gómez, who frequently appears at the helm of Women’s Rights Day marches on March 8th, did not want to give up this career when her husband became prime minister in 2018.

Sánchez and Gómez with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (2ndR) and her husband Joachim Sauer visit the Doñana National Park in southern Spain in 2018. (Photo by LAURA LEON / POOL / AFP)

‘Independent woman’

She and Sánchez have been a couple since the early 2000s after they met at a mutual friend’s birthday party.

She has accompanied his political rise, appearing at key events such as election night, but without exposing herself too much in the media. They have two teenage daughters.

Spain is a parliamentary monarchy with a king who is head of state, and there is no rank or special protocol for the spouses of the head of government, which can let them play a discreet role if they choose.

“Thanks to her, I have more strength,” Sánchez, a self-declared feminist, once said during a TV interview.

He has also often complained that Gómez is the victim of a steady stream of “false information”.

Like Brigitte Macron of France and former US first lady Michelle Obama, Gómez has been the target of fake news on social media suggesting she is actually a man.

READ MORE: Wife of Spain’s PM sues TV host for suggesting she is transsexual

Other online stories falsely claim she was fired from her job at Complutense University.

Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Maria Jesus Montero defended Gómez on Thursday, calling her “a modern, professional, independent woman”.

Montero, who is also budget minister, also said the right would prefer that Gómez “stay at home” and that “women should stay out of public life”.

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