He assures that there is not a single economic forecast that has been fulfilled and stresses that the Government’s economic policy “is a failure”
MADRID, 13 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has assured this Friday that his party is willing to study the decree that the Government has approved with a mechanism to limit the price of gas with the aim of lowering the electricity bill. Of course, he has warned that the “very high” inflation in Spain shows that “the anti-crisis measures” promoted by the Executive led by Pedro Sánchez “have not worked in the first month.”
“Inflation data has just been released, 8.3% in April. It is a very high inflation, one of the highest in the EU and one of the highest in our country’s economic history”, declared Feijóo, who considers that this situation is “clearly harming the recovery of purchasing power and the competitiveness of the economy”.
In an interview on RNE, which Europa Press has collected, Feijóo has highlighted that Spain is “at the peak of inflation” and it cannot be said that “it has happened”, especially when “hydrocarbons continue to rise”.
In his opinion, having an inflation of 8.3% in a country like Spain, which “is not as affected by the war as Germany or Poland, is frankly very complicated”, especially if it is “compared” with France or Portugal, its neighboring countries. “It is evident that Spain has an inflation problem and that the Government’s anti-inflation measures have not worked,” he added.
When asked if the PP will give its support to the gas price cap approved this Friday in the Council of Ministers, Feijóo assured that his party will study it, as it does with all proposals.
“Any measure that is proposed in Congress, we value it, we study it and if we agree, we support it, as happened this Thursday when we supported the continuation of the National Security Law,” he added.
This Friday, in an extraordinary Council of Ministers, the Government approved the mechanism to limit the price of gas for electricity generation to an average of around 50 euros per megawatt/hour (MWh) for a period of twelve months.
As for whether the PP would support a rise in wages, with an update of 3.5%, Feijóo has pointed out that the “basic objective is to lower inflation.” “The spiral of assuming salaries according to inflation, and more inflation and more salaries, and more inflation and more salaries, that is typical of more Hispanic-American economies than European economies,” he warned.
Feijóo has explained that his party defends a position of “improving the competitiveness of the Spanish economy” and has criticized that the PSOE Executive and United We Can have dedicated themselves to “indebting Spain” and exceeding the 5% public deficit.
“Therefore, we have a government that has dedicated itself to raising taxes, raising the public deficit and raising the public debt. This entails a lack of competitiveness in our economy. And furthermore, it has not been able to control inflation, knowing that it was going to rise as a result of the war, but not to the extremes of almost doubling French or Portuguese inflation,” he stressed.
For all these reasons, he insisted that the Government’s economic policy “has not worked” and added that “there is not a single macroeconomic table that the Government has sent to Brussels that has been fulfilled”. “There is not a single economic forecast for growth and inflation in each Budget that has been met. Therefore, the Government’s economic policy is a failure,” he emphasized.
Feijóo has highlighted that the Airef has said this week that they are facing an “escalation of public debt and a mirage of lowering the deficit” due to the “incredible collection of taxes” due to inflation.
“Either we change the economic policy or we are going to end the legislature with the highest level of debt and with higher taxes than when it began, more public deficit and without being the only country in the EU that does not recover the GDP of 2019, prior to the pandemic”, he concluded.
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