The regional governments are exposed to a debt increase of 13.7 billion in the coming years amid debate on debt forgiveness.

Regional governments could see their public debt increase by more than €13.708 billion over the next three years, according to forecasts by the Foundation for Applied Economic Studies (Fedea), amid the debate over the Ministry of Finance's proposal to assume part of the regional deficit.

Based on this data recently released by the economic think tank, the autonomous communities are expected to close out 2028 with a total of €362.944 billion in public debt, €13.7 billion more than the forecast for the end of 2025.

It's worth remembering that public debt is the total deficit of each regional administration, while the government's proposal is to forgive the debt owed by regional governments to the state, although it also seeks to assume a percentage of the trade deficit of regional governments that do not owe the state.

In any case, Fedea has made its estimates of the evolution of regional public debt based on various assumptions. According to these calculations, total debt will reach 349.236 billion in 2025, while in 2026 it will grow to 353.673 billion, in 2027 to 360.098 billion, and in 2028 to 362.944 billion.

With this, the economic foundation forecasts a change in regional public debt of more than €13.7 billion between 2025 and 2028.

The Ministry of Finance has proposed to the autonomous communities that they assume up to €83.252 billion of debt owed by autonomous communities under the common system. This proposal was approved by the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF) despite the PP's reluctance.

The Treasury's idea for debt forgiveness arose after the agreement reached by the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) with the ERC (Republican Socialist Workers' Party) for Pedro Sánchez's investiture, which included a deficit reduction for Catalonia and later specified that a similar measure would be proposed for the rest of the regions.

However, this proposal must be embodied in an organic law that must be approved by the Cortes Generales, something that has not yet happened, and there is no date set for its implementation.

Furthermore, the PP-backed communities have criticized this approach to debt forgiveness, although the government believes that if it is ultimately approved, they will ultimately accept it.