The Community of Madrid raises to 12.367 billion euros the consolidated debt of the central Government with the region for public services, benefits, and unmet legal commitments, an amount that represents 40% of the total regional budget for 2026.
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This was announced by the Minister of Economy, Finance and Employment of the Community of Madrid, Rocío Albert, in an informative meeting where she updated the data from October, when it was then estimated at 10.5 billion and now an additional 1.867 billion has been added. “The central Government’s non-payment represents nearly the entire Madrid budget allocated to its public health system for this whole year,” Albert denounced.
“Breach of institutional loyalty”
In the minister’s opinion, this is a “breach of institutional loyalty,” worsened by the absence of the General State Budgets, with the last three years not even having presented the project, in an “unprecedented democratic anomaly,” she emphasized. The minister denounced that under the excuse of the lack of budgets, the central Government does not update the advance payments, which account for 77% of regional income.
Thus, this year, the Community of Madrid is receiving an amount less than what corresponds to it, with 129 million less per month between January and March and 376 million from April onwards. The minister pointed out that the accumulated loss exceeds 750 million, to which another 4.7 billion are added between interest paid for that emergency financing and lost profitability.
Albert commented that, of the 12.367 billion that the State owes the Community of Madrid, the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Employment concentrates 6.276 billion. Of these, 4.513 correspond to the cap on the Competitiveness Fund accumulated between 2019 and 2023; 765 to the delay in advance payments for 2026, and 993 to the underfunding of European funds from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism.
Meanwhile, Social Affairs accumulates 2.668 billion since 2019 due to non-compliance with the Dependency Law, which obliges the State to finance 50% of the system and only covers 27.9%; Environment raises the figure to 2.785 billion: 1.580 from the third cycle of the Tagus Hydrological Plan and 1.200 from pending works at the Wastewater Treatment Plants of La China, Butarque, and Sur. And the debt is completed with 417 million from the Regional Transport Consortium, 149 in Health, 61 in Justice, and 10 in Education.
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Letter to the Minister of Finance
Additionally, Albert reported on the letter sent to the Minister of Finance, Arcadi España, in which the Madrid Government demands the approval of an “urgent and specific Royal Decree Law, not mixed with evictions, housing, taxation, and a long etcetera,” “that updates the advance payments” to the autonomous communities.
For the minister, the method is repeated with each regulation approved by the central Government, which consists of decisions approved in the Council of Ministers, taken to sectoral conferences to inform – not to negotiate -, and which in the vast majority of cases do not include an economic report quantifying their impact on regional finances. In short, “I decide, you pay,” she denounced.
The most recent example is, in her opinion, the so-called Comprehensive Response Plan to the Middle East Crisis, which temporarily reduces – until June 30 – the VAT on electricity and fuels, and the special taxes on electricity and hydrocarbons, all of which are fully or partially ceded to the autonomous communities. In this case, as she detailed, the impact in Madrid amounts to 206 million euros.
Likewise, Albert warned that the Government is processing other measures “with a high budgetary impact” for the autonomous communities without accompanying economic reports or quantifying their cost. “This is the case of the reduction of the working day to 35 hours in the Administration or the imposition of the calendar for reducing teaching hours in schools and ratios for teachers,” she asserted.
She indicated that the pay raise agreed by the central Government for public employees, without the participation of the autonomous communities, amounts to 888 million for the Community of Madrid in 2025 and 2026, rising to nearly 2 billion by 2028.
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