They ask the PSOE to negotiate an “ambitious” package in the extension of the anti-crisis decree
MADRID, 23 (.)
The leader of Podemos and Minister of Social Rights, Ione Belarra, has expressed “concern” about the “lack of progress” in the negotiation to apply the measures that her space has proposed, within the extension of the social shield of the anti-crisis decree, which should be approved next Tuesday by the Council of Ministers.
This has been transferred through a message on Twitter as a complaint about the situation of this negotiation within the coalition regarding the requests for its formation to the PSOE, such as reducing the cost of public transport to the user to 50%, the freezing of rents and the installment of variable mortgages or the deployment of a help check of 300 euros for part of the country’s households in order to alleviate the rise in the price of the shopping basket.
Subsequently, sources of the purple formation have influenced this concern regarding the negotiations to extend the social shield, because ten days after they sent their proposal document and a few days after the regular session of the Council of Ministers is held, there is no significant progress in the talks.
WE CAN ASK THE PSOE FOR AN “AMBITIOUS” PACKAGE OF MEASURES
Faced with this situation, Podemos asks the PSOE to negotiate an “ambitious package that helps families face their main expenses”, such as the shopping basket and housing, in addition to claiming that measures previously proposed by the purple party, such as the cap on gas or the reduction in public transport have proven “successful in containing the rise in prices”.
Last Saturday and during the celebration of the Podemos Citizen Council, the minister indicated that the aforementioned check that will benefit around eight million people was being negotiated with the PSOE. The approach that she sent her department to the Government is that it be applied to households with incomes of no more than 42,000 euros per year.
“Public intervention in strategic sectors such as energy and transport works and we must insist. That is why we have proposed to the PSOE that we keep the gas cap at 40 euros also for the next six months and also that we increase state financing for transport to 50% urban”, detailed then.
He also considered that it is “absolutely essential to intervene” in two of the main expenses of Spanish families: housing and the shopping basket. And along these lines, he demanded that his partner freeze rental prices, as they did in the pandemic, causing rents to drop by 4.5% in Spain, together with the freezing of variable-rate mortgage installments that “are suffering hundreds of unaffordable increases euros per month”.
Along with this, they also proposed creating an extraordinary tax on the profits of large supermarkets (over 33% of their profit margins) so that they “put their shoulders together at a difficult time for our people.”
On the other hand, the Government is studying lowering VAT on certain products in the shopping basket with the aim of cushioning the impact of the rise in inflation which, according to the latest data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), reached 15, 3% year-on-year in the month of November.
The second vice president of the Government and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, rejected on Monday a general reduction in VAT on food, arguing that it would only serve to “widen” the benefits of large distributors and would not help families with the shopping basket.
