There is no matter around which Pedro Sánchez achieves agree with the partners who raised him to the presidency in November of the Government. The last case, the tax on energy companies that the Executive has proposed to make permanent, causing the rejection of Catalan and Basque nationalism. Both Junts and the PNV have positioned themselves against the measure, understanding that it puts investments in their territories at risk, and the Peneuvistas demand that, in any case, it become another tax to be managed by the autonomous community itself.
First was the Lendakari, Imanol Pradales, who, following in the wake of Josu Jon Imaz, CEO of Repsol and a figure of maximum importance in the Basque nationalism that called the tax “fiscal populism”criticized it, stating that if it came to fruition, it should be the responsibility of the provincial estates – Álava, Bizkaia, Vizcaya – to manage it. The justification is that the Economic Agreement enjoyed by the Basque Country does not provide powers over temporary taxes, but it does over permanent ones.
Today it was the spokesperson in Congress, Aitor Esteban, who highlighted the party’s position, warning that They are not going to accept that this tax continuesbut rather that this becomes an agreed tax so that the Basque Country can graduate it, defending the fiscal “sovereignty” that differentiates the region, along with Navarra, from the rest of Spain. «Either it is tax or it is nothing […] And if it is imposed, it will have to be agreed upon and with regulatory capacity on our part,” he said this morning during an interview on Radio Popular.
“Here what we have to encourage is investment,” stated Esteban in line with the defense of the industrialization process of the Basque Country that the regional Executive is trying to lead. One that has also become visible in its interest in Sidenor’s entry into Talgo’s shareholding to come to fruition. «We are at a crucial moment in which our industry is being transformedcompeting in some places and others in Europe. We have to be the first and the ones to get investments to transform this industry, which means jobs for the future and quality, well-paid jobs. For that, companies need to invest,” he stressed.
The issue came to the forefront of the debate after Imaz, former leader of Guipúzcoa Buru Batzar (the PNV delegation in the province), raised the possibility of investments migrating from the country, looking to other neighbors such as Portugal. Something that the nationalists propose as detrimental to the interests of the territory and contrary to the economic strategy that the new Executive chaired by Pradales is trying to promote.
The question not only has it revealed a new fracturenow in the financial field, within the walls of the ‘Frankenstein majority’, but also within the coalition government of the PNV and the Socialist Party of Euskadi (PSE) of the Basque Country. The general secretary of the Basque socialists, Eneko Andueza, has accused the PNV of moving towards a model of “fiscal dumping” pushed by “party interests.” These, for their part, ask that the General Meetings of the three Basque provinces, which manage the collection within the Concert, be the ones to decide its implementation.
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