Spanish Immigration looks at Spanish Immigration Business: With less than five months until the legislative elections, the Spanish government has announced the budget plan for 2016. According to this plan, the government will redistribute fiscal expenditures to allow Spaniards to share in the economic development results achieved under several years of fiscal austerity policies.
It has been reported that after several years of difficult fiscal expenditure cuts, the Spanish government's 2016 budget plan can finally breathe a sigh of relief, with slight increases expected in nearly all sectors: education (+9.3%), culture (+7.6%), healthcare (+3.6%), research and development (+2.2%), government employee salaries that have not increased since 2010 (+1%), and financial support for local governments.
The Spanish Minister of Finance stated when introducing the new budget plan: "This budget will allow the entire society to share in the achievements of the past few years." The Minister also expects that next year's government fiscal deficit can be controlled to within 3% of GDP, as low as 2.8%.
It has been reported that due to record tax revenues this year, Spain is also prepared to appropriately reduce personal income tax collections next year "based on the flexibility of the budget." Meanwhile, the Spanish government's welfare spending will increase by 3.8%.
The feasibility of these measures relies on expectations for economic growth in the next two years. According to the Spanish Minister of Finance, this year's economic growth in Spain is expected to reach 3.3%, with next year's expectation at 3%, which would make Spain one of the faster-growing economies in the Eurozone. Of course, the Minister attributes this positive change in the Spanish economy to the policies implemented by the government since 2012.
It is reported that Spain experienced its most severe economic crisis since the democratization of the 1970s after the real estate bubble burst in 2008, with unemployment rates reaching historic highs. The crisis caused a dramatic increase in the fiscal deficit, exceeding 9% of GDP in 2011. This also led Spain to cut fiscal expenditures by approximately 150 billion euros.