The first edition of the Index of Economic Freedom of Spanish Cities (ILECE), prepared by the Foundation for the Advancement of Freedom, concludes that the situation for the 30 most populated Spanish cities is “very improvable” and that the municipal tax pressure is excessive. In the Valencian case, Alicante and Elche pass, with a score higher than 50 points -in fact Alicante is the second in Spain behind Almería-, while València suspends, and is only above Jerez de la Frontera and Granada .
Eleven of the 30 cities analyzed fail -with less than 50 points out of the 100 available-, according to the index, developed to measure and compare the degree of “economic freedom” of the main cities, taking into account what the economic activity depends on. Municipal administration.
Thus, it tries to measure whether the municipalities favor or disfavor the economic freedom of the city, although it remembers that the situation of each one of them “depends to a great extent on the action of the central, regional and European administrations, which are not taken into account. counts in the study. “
Almería leads the index, with 62.51 points out of 100, followed by Alicante (61.42), A Coruña (58.86), Vigo (59.23), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (58.86), Elche ( 57.15), Oviedo (56.8), Pamplona (56.6), Córdoba (55.56), Sabadell (54.77), Bilbao (53.3), Gijón (53.15), Malaga (52 , 67), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (52.46), Terrassa (51.81), Vitoria (51.51), Badalona (51.17), Cartagena (50.71) and Móstoles (50.37).
Half of the points are not achieved by Murcia (49.92), Zaragoza (49.42), Madrid (49.29), Valladolid (49.29), L’Hospitalet de Llobregat (48.16), Palma de Mallorca ( 48.15), Seville (46.02), Barcelona (45.49), Valencia (44.01), Jerez de la Frontera (40.57) and Granada (39.44).
Valencian cities
The three Valencian cities examined obtain different results. Thus, Alicante obtains 61.42 points out of 100, something that the report considers “moderate freedom”.
Since the foundation, they recommend the Alicante town hall “should maintain its good performance in terms of the total cost of the city council for its inhabitants, together with a relatively low level of municipal debt.” “A pending issue is the tax rate of the IBI, which is not competitive. It would also be convenient to contain the hiring of personnel,” the report reveals.
In the case of Elche, sixth city in the ranking, the foundation understands that “the town needs above all to reduce the tax rate of the Real Estate Tax”. With 57.15 points, the city of Elche is sixth in the state ranking.
With regard to Valencia, it is ranked 28 out of 30, with 44.01 points. For the foundation, the capital of Turia presents “a very improvable level of indebtedness”. Likewise, they point out that “the City Council spends too much on subsidies” and that it should “outsource through concessions the main services that citizens receive, and, on the other hand, reduce their late payment to suppliers.” “On the other hand, the IBI rate applied is another negative point and could be substantially reduced,” they add.
The report concludes that the size of cities influences their economic freedom, since “there is a strong tendency for the largest cities to perform poorly on this index,” and also points out that capital status can be detrimental, since eight of the eleven cities that are suspended are regional capitals.
The index takes into account aspects such as the municipal financial year -which evaluates elements such as the Budget and indebtedness and weighs 30% of the score-; the size of the City Council staff (20%); the municipal economic interventionism (20%), and the fiscal pressure of the city (30%).and
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