The increase in State investment in Catalonia last year has not been sufficient, and the community remains at very low levels of budget execution in 2024 and 2025 in relation to its weight in Spain’s GDP and population.
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Catalonia received last year 8.6% of all the investment that the State executed in the country and that can be regionalized by autonomous communities, according to data from the State General Intervention (IGAE) that the Ministry of Finance has sent today to the political groups of the Congress of Deputies and to which La Vanguardia has had access. In 2024, Catalonia obtained 10.8% of the total investment. The share of the pie that corresponded to Catalonia last year was less than half of its weight in the overall GDP (19%) and far from its weight in the population (17%).
In total, in 2025 the investment executed in Catalonia was 1,321 million euros. It is 28.5% higher than that of 2023 (the last year with approved budgets) although 6.2% below the figure for 2024, which was 1,409 million.
Madrid obtains double the real State investment of Catalonia in 2025
The chronically low budget execution of the State in Catalonia is one of the main complaints of Catalan civil society, ranging from employers’ associations and unions to political parties and the academic world. The positive part of the figures is that in 2024 and 2025, the State spent in the community above 1,300 million. It is a significantly higher amount than in the period 2013-2022 when it never exceeded 1,000 million.
The problem arises when these figures are compared with those of other communities. Last year, for example, Catalonia was the fifth community in which the State invested the most money with the aforementioned 1,321 million. Madrid received 2.4 times more real investment than Catalonia with 3,218 million spent. The State also invested more in the Valencian Community (1,738 million), Andalusia (1,620) and Galicia (1,580).
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The data also show that half of the money executed last year in Catalonia was borne by Adif, the railway infrastructure manager.
The information on investment execution that was traditionally made public every six months on the IGAE website is now sent by the Ministry of Finance directly to the secretariats of the Congress. Today, information for the second half of 2024 and the entire year 2025 has been provided. Catalan political groups – such as Junts and ERC – have been demanding for years that it be published periodically again.
Since the State budgets are extended, it is not possible to analyze the execution percentage in relation to the budgeted amount. Even so, spending in all years is below what was budgeted in the case of Catalonia in the last 2023 budgets. However, if what was actually executed in 2025 is compared with the extended 2023 budgets, the execution is 58%.
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