The first vice president, Nadia Calviño, assures that the issues raised by the Eurobank were already taken into account when the tax was designed and that the extraordinary benefits of the sector give room for credit not to be affected
The Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, defended this Friday that it is necessary to “lower the status” of the opinion that the European Central Bank has prepared on the levies on the banking and energy sector proposed by the Government through of the parliamentary groups that support the coalition. Then, more cautiously, the First Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, defended this Friday that all the issues raised by the ECB in its opinion were taken into account in the design of the new bank tax.
The Bank of Spain published the Eurobank report this Thursday afternoon, minutes before the debate began in the Congress of Deputies on the amendment to the totality of taxes proposed by Ciudadanos, which was finally rejected in the Chamber, with which the processing of the new taxes will continue, although it will most likely face partial amendments from the coalition partners who will propose, as announced, that these new fiscal figures, instead of being temporary, become permanent.
The document prepared by the ECB is critical of the proposal of the parliamentary groups of United We Can and the PSOE. The body chaired by Christine Lagarde claims that the implementation of these fiscal figures should be preceded by an exhaustive analysis of the possible negative consequences for the banking sector, so that the new taxes do not pose risks to financial stability, the resilience of the sector banking and credit granting, which in turn can negatively affect economic growth. In addition, it understands that credit institutions will transfer to the client the increase in costs that the increase in the tax bill implies and invites them to do so.
Vice President Calviño, regarding these warnings, assured that the extraordinary benefits that the banking sector is obtaining must imply that the tax does not have to affect the granting of credit and the proper functioning of the financial sector. In addition, Nadia Calviño ratified that the tax will go ahead and added that during the parliamentary process the text will improve.
Minister Escrivá, in an interview on RNE this Friday morning, stated that he finds it “surprising” that the ECB manifests itself in these terms, that it warns about the consequences of the tax on credit, when right now the monetary authority is raising interest rates: “What are you doing it for? It does the same to soften the growth of credit, therefore, to think this (that taxes can reduce financing) an institution that is raising interest rates seems quite paradoxical to me, ”reflected the head of the Inclusion portfolio.
For his part, the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, pointed out that the Executive will study the ECB’s opinion to “see to what extent the design of the tax could be improved.” But he defended the government’s position that the tax should not be passed on to customers “because if not, eventually, they would end up paying the usual ones again,” he assured.
The body’s opinion was prepared in response to a request made by the Bank of Spain on behalf of the Congress of Deputies. The ECB has consultative competence in this matter granted to it by the treaties of the European Union.
“A copy paste”
José Luis Escrivá, the minister most critical of the ECB’s opinion, added that it is not the first time that the body has issued a report of these characteristics and that it seems to him that the one released this Thursday is a “copy-paste” from other times and different contexts: «It will be a type of report that they have standardized and they have put it there without taking into account that given the current situation it seems a bit surprising». For this reason, he reiterated that “the status of a report of these characteristics must be greatly reduced.” Escrivá recalled that he worked at the European Central Bank and that the preparation of this type of report does not constitute “a central element of his activity” and that “it does not enter into the central decision-making process.”
“Considerations, recommendations of a general nature are given, but in no case do I understand that the ECB wants to interfere with the legitimacy that a government has to regulate these issues in these terms,” concluded Escrivá, who defended that the prosecutor is a national competition and that there are taxes on banks in many European countries, such as in the Scandinavian countries or in France.
This Thursday, the Minister of Finance and Public Function, María Jesús Montero, had already downplayed the report of the European Central Bank and advanced that the Executive was not considering changes in the processing of these taxes. The minister hid behind the fact that the monetary authority does not propose the suspension of the tax on financial entities.
The Popular Party, through Cuca Gamarra, demanded that the Executive withdraw the proposal to levy a new tax on banking. The main opposition party has criticized the Executive on several occasions for not waiting for the ECB’s ruling to support this new tax. This Friday morning, the general secretary of the PP opposed the government’s new tax with its project, which consists, in addition to the discussed recovery of the deduction for the purchase of housing, in the construction of a fund with resources from the bank and of the State to give aid to the mortgaged. This, defended Gamarra, does not harm the economy nor does it imply that it is the citizens who end up paying the government’s ideas with commissions.
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