Jose Luis Escriva came to the Government as one of the figures with the greatest respect and credibility in the economic sphere of Spain. His appearances in Congress as president of the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF) were highly anticipated and valued by all forces. And his warnings were always taken into account by the opposition, who did not hesitate to use them as a weighty argument against which the Government had little or nothing to say.
However, that credibility does not seem to be the same that he is granting to organizations such as the European Commission, the Bank of Spain or even the Tax Authority itself. Brussels has warned this Thursday that the fall in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Spain will be 12.8% this year, which is the worst figure in the entire continent, and a sensible correction since – 10.9% previously estimated.
“They have become outdated“wrote Escrivá when he was questioned on this point during his speech at the Informative Breakfasts of Europa Press. The reason, he explained, is that they do not collect data from the Labor Force Survey (EPA) and GDP for the third quarter. “The forecasts of international organizations are useful from the point of view of comparison between countries, but individually they are not so interesting or so useful,” he added.
The Bank of Spain, for its part, yesterday presented an amendment to practically all of the General State Budgets, including the rejection of the increase in the salary of public workers and a correction of the growth forecasts. And this has not been to the liking of the Minister of Social Security, who has resumed a war that he already had with the organism directed by Pablo Hernández de Cos when he was in charge of AIReF.
Thus, he pointed out that the forecasts of the Bank of Spain on the behavior of the labor market in the third quarter remained below what the EPA finally reflected, and has recommended to the body, in which he himself began his career path, “learn” from the errors in the estimates and see where the mistakes lie.
AIReF also expresses many doubts
And with all these criticisms, although without citing them directly, Escrivá would also be downplaying AIReF’s own warnings. Its current president and second during her term, Cristina Herrero, made a diagnosis in Congress this Thursday similar to that of Hernández de Cos, showing serious doubts about the figures set out by the Executive in its Budget Plan and warning that, in the current context, the official economic recovery figures look very complicated.
“The optimistic scenario”, which is the one that resembles the official estimates, “rests on some assumptions unfortunately increasingly distant taking into account the evolution that the pandemic is having, “Herrero summarized. For them to be fulfilled, it would be necessary that the Christmas campaign could be carried out and that” the mobility restriction measures were eliminated, possibilities that right now it seems very complicated.
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