Palma, Mallorca.

Palma, Mallorca. | A.S.

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterMallorca02/11/2020 09:05
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The salaries of nearly 38,000 Civil Servants will be frozen again next year because the draft Community Budget only allows for a wage increase when Gross Domestic Product is at pre-Covid levels.

Officials won’t get the 2% increase for this year or the 0.9 percent that Minister María Jesús Montero promised for 2021 and the salary of Senior Government officials will also be frozen. Budgets will also include a provision that validates the salary freeze that has already been applied this year.

Accounts

On Monday, the Government Council will approve the highest Budgets in history amounting to around 6,000 million euros between the 4,726.5 million spending ceiling and the 1,200 million of debt to pay amortizations.

But the Government will have 342.7 million euros more than last year despite the significant drop in revenues. There's a reduction of 200 million euros in assigned taxes, derived from the slump in income from property transfer tax on second-hand homes.

The collection of own revenues falls from the 214 budgeted in 2020 to the 141 included in the accounts of 2021. There will be losses of 73 million euros because no ecotax has been collected and only draft tax change next year will be a fee levied on Municipalities that don’t encourage recycling.

The falls in revenue are offset by the 100 million euros in European Union funds and 295.7 in extraordinary funds from the Central Government to combat the effects of Covid-19.

All Ministries will have more money next year, which has facilitated the negotiation of accounts between the three parties of Government and after the project is approved by the Government Council the text will be sent to Parliament for processing.

CCOO

The CCOO heavily criticised the salary freeze for Civil Servants in 2020 and says it fears the same thing will happen next year. The Union claims that the Government has turned the General Board of Public Employees into a "procedure" to report a "fait accompli."

"We denounce the disappointment and rejection of the format used in the last Tables,” said Union Reps who indicated in a statement that they understand the economic situation that the Community is going through, but at the same time demand Budgets that “maintain the quality in the provision of basic public services for citizens."