The vice president shakes off the pressure and delays the measures until April 1 after meeting with social agents and communities
The economic vice president, Nadia Calviño, took the reins of the negotiation of the measures that the Government wants to put in place to cushion the effects of the crisis derived from the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Monday. And she did so by meeting with the representatives of the autonomous communities and municipalities, as well as with the social agents (businessmen and unions) in a marathon day from which few accurate conclusions could be drawn: there will be measures, yes. But they will be approved on March 29 in the Council of Ministers.
Despite the fact that the Executive’s delay in acting is taking hold among the population, Calviño stressed that although initiatives have been announced in other countries, “in most cases they will come into force on April 1.” Therefore, Spain “would be aligned with other countries, for example with France.” That was the slogan launched by the economic vice president throughout the day on Monday every time she was reminded of the haste with which other States have moved forward to act to combat the rise in fuel prices: France has authorized farmers, winners , transporters and the rest of the self-employed in the Gallic country will be able to save 15 cents for each liter of fuel; Italy will reduce special taxes on the price of a liter of gasoline and diesel by 25 euro cents; and in Portugal, a bonus program has been launched that this month will reimburse consumers up to a maximum of 20 euros in their fuel consumption and to which more than two million people have signed up.
At the Sectoral Conference, attended by the autonomous communities, the Government showed them its proposals to reduce the price of electricity and fuel. At the same time, Economy gathered the positions of all the autonomous governments, since some measures -especially those of a tax nature- will have an impact on the collection of the regions. For example, as Nadia Calviño recalled in her appearance, six out of every 10 euros of what is collected from taxes on hydrocarbons and half of the VAT goes to the coffers of the autonomous communities.
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Nadia Calviño – Economic Vice President.
«It must be taken into account that six out of every ten euros of what is collected in Hydrocarbons, and half of the VAT, goes to the regional coffers»
Sources from some communities tell this newspaper that the possibility of lowering taxes is not, at least apparently, in the first line of measures. In fact, the economic vice president herself, Nadia Calviño, dropped it that way when she appeared after the meeting held throughout the afternoon with the social agents within the framework of the Social Dialogue Table. “Tax cuts are not effective in this sector,” she said when referring to the agreement with the large carrier organizations to discount diesel and other similar measures. “We have already seen in previous examples where tax cuts are offset by increases in energy prices and that causes an impoverishment of public accounts without a positive effect” on the population affected by the crisis. She refers to the reductions in electricity VAT that have been outweighed by increases in electricity prices in recent months.
This meeting with the social agents gave continuity to the meeting, held in Moncloa on March 7, in which the Government requested the collaboration of the social agents to respond with unity to the economic impact of the war in Ukraine and raised the need to reach an income agreement. In this sense, Calvio declined to assess any proposal on wages, considering that it is part of the bipartite negotiation between employers and unions.
This meeting was also attended by the second vice president, the third, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Inclusion and Social Security, and the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism. On behalf of the social agents, the Executive summoned the general secretary of the CC OO, Unai Sordo; the general secretary of the UGT, Pepe Álvarez; the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, and Cepyme, Gerardo Cuerva.
Earlier, Garamendi stated that there are measures that the Government should have already adopted to address the current situation because “the country cannot be allowed to stand still.” For the unions, touching taxes would imply “reducing the capacity of the State to redistribute wealth”, as the UGT general secretary said last week. His CC OO counterpart assured that this measure would only lead to “hiding the root” of the problem.
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