Maria Cadaval participates in the Spanish Congress in the presentation of proposals for regional financing reform

The group of experts from the Galician Economic Forum presented at the Spanish Congress of Deputies the document “Proposals for Spain: the reform of regional financing,” which outlines strategic guidelines to address one of the main institutional challenges of Spain’s territorial system.

The session was led by the President of the Forum, businessman Emilio Pérez Nieto, together with the group’s director, Santiago Lago, and included the participation of the report’s authors, among whom is economist and Professor at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, María Cadaval.

The document, prepared by a team of leading experts in public economics and fiscal federalism, including Xaquín Fernández Leiceaga and Jorge Martínez-Vázquez, analyzes the main challenges of Spain’s regional financing system and proposes a reform agenda aimed at improving the equity, efficiency, and sustainability of the model.

During the presentation, the authors pointed to structural issues such as insufficient resources, disparities in per capita funding, the limited tax capacity of regional governments, and the complexity of the system, which hampers public understanding and the clear allocation of political responsibilities.

Among its recommendations, the report proposes reforming and strengthening the Interterritorial Compensation Fund to promote economic convergence and territorial balance, as well as reviewing extraordinary financing mechanisms to ensure greater fairness in the treatment of regional debt. Finally, the experts emphasize the need to clearly define the vertical and horizontal distribution of deficit targets in the context of the new European fiscal rules, advocating for more agile mechanisms to align regional finances with economic realities.