Dismisses Vox’s appeal by concluding that it does not affect the “single fund” of Social Security
MADRID, 31 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Constitutional Court (TC) has unanimously endorsed that the Basque Country and Navarra manage the minimum vital income, considering that this does not affect the “single fund” of Social Security and replicates the management model that has been applied for pensions. retirement and disability contributions since its creation in 1990.
This is how the Plenary has ruled when rejecting the unconstitutionality appeal presented by the Vox deputies against the precept of Law 19/2021, of December 20, which provides that the communities of the regional regime assume – after signing in accordance with the State– the management and payment of the minimum vital income in its territory.
In 2022, when Vox presented the appeal, the then spokesperson and general secretary of the party Macarena Olona explained in statements to the press that they went to the TC because they considered this transfer of jurisdiction over the minimum vital income to the provincial territories “unworthy.” She claimed that it was the “first time in history since the approval of the Constitution” that a Government “voluntarily breaks the constitutional framework of distribution of powers in this area.”
The formation insisted that this transfer violated the Constitution “by attributing, outside the constitutionally provided channels, to specific communities powers that the Constitution inexorably reserves for the State.”
This Wednesday, the Constitutional Court rejected their arguments. As reported by the court of guarantees, the magistrates have recalled that the Constitutional Court itself in 1989 already established in a ruling that the autonomous powers for the “management of the economic regime of Social Security” must be reconciled with those that correspond to the State to preserve the called “single fund”, that is, the unit of the Social Security system and its uniform economic functioning.
In this sense, the court has stressed that the autonomous communities that have statutorily assumed such competence, may carry out – prior agreement with the State – those acts of management of Social Security benefits that do not compromise the “single fund” nor the unitary model of the system.
From the TC they have specified that the ruling explains that the processing and recognition of the minimum vital income does not affect the “single fund” because the regulations that the aforementioned autonomous communities will have to apply are entirely state and the State reserves functions – such as criteria setting, management of the “digital social card” system, subsequent financial control, etc.– which guarantee the maintenance of the unitary model and uniform economic functioning.
Furthermore, the court has indicated that although the regional autonomous communities do not have specialized powers in matters of Social Security, their peculiar financing system allows them, unlike the rest of the communities, to also assume the payment of the benefit, subsequently deducting from the quota and contribution the amount derived from the Concert and Economic Agreement with the State.
The Constitutional Court, in a sentence delivered by the president of the court, the magistrate Cándido Conde-Pumpido, has insisted that the management model envisaged in the law approved in 2021 replicates what is being applied to non-contributory retirement and disability pensions since its creation in 1990.
And he has stressed that these benefits are managed by the communities, although in the common regime the payment is made by the General Treasury of Social Security, while the Basque Country and Navarra assume it in accordance with their specific financing model, as do now it is established for the minimum vital income.
