The ex-president Felipe González criticized in the I International Expansion Forum the management of the pandemic by the central government and the autonomous communities. With measured words and courage not to offend the rulers –“I would not like to be in the engine room now“-, the former socialist leader stated that he does not understand the constitutional mechanism of the state of alarm as the Government is interpreting it, criticized the chaos of the so-called co-governance to manage the pandemic and questioned the effectiveness of the approved Budgets sent to Congress, since they are made to comply with the PSOE-United We Can pact, without taking into account the consequences of the serious health crisis that has changed everything.
The former president gave voice to the many doubts that exist in the political world and also in the legal world regarding the application of the decree of the state of alarm approved by the Government and that this week will be debated by Congress. In his opinion, the Government’s competence in this matter “it is not delegable” in the autonomous communities, as stated in the decree. González showed his amazement at the chaos that exists in the so-called co-governance by which each autonomous community establishes its own rules without a national strategy. “I do not know if I am going to be able to leave Madrid, cross Castilla-La Mancha or enter Extremadura, and if I know today, perhaps I will not know tomorrow,” he said in relation to the measures that are published every day in the community newsletters. “Now to tell your children what time to return home you have to read the BOE,” he ironized. The former president recognized the difficulty of the rulers of “give certainty in times of uncertainty “, although he advised that “the closest thing to the truth” be told to citizens. A six-month state of alarm, as the Government proposes, gives little confidence, for example, to investors.
The Budget Bill did not convince González either sent by the Government to Congress, as “it is focused on complying with the agreement of the two parties” before the pandemic changed everything. “No one, no one should think that after the pandemic the scenario will be the same as before the pandemic. They have to make a clean slate. “The former socialist president predicted that Spain might lose” twenty years “from an economic point of view -to return to 2001- once the health crisis is over, although he thought that Judging by the evolution of the pandemic, the virus will remain with us for a long time.
Inequality
González participated in the round table of the 1st International Expansion Forum dedicated to the inequality gap that the pandemic will leave in Spanish society and was particularly concerned about the scandalous levels of youth unemployment in Spain. According to the latest EPA, youth unemployment is close to 40% in our country, the highest figure in the entire EU.
Similarly, the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, heralded a very black era for small hotel and restaurant companies. “What is coming is very hard and the message of the six months of a state of alarm means that we are also taking on the next Holy Week.” There are 350,000 hotel establishments, many of which are due to close, taking into account, in addition, that they are the major victims of the restrictions to stop the brutal second wave that the country is suffering. In communities such as Catalonia and La Rioja, the closure of the hotel business has been decreed to stop the second wave of the coronavirus. The chief of the businessmen, as González also did, asked for the unity of the political forces and regretted that when he goes abroad they ask him about the King, and about Catalonia. According to Garamendi, the international image projected by political polarization is very negative. The head of the Spanish employers asked the Government, as the Governor of the Bank of Spain had done previously, to commit “temporary spending” to alleviate the effects of the pandemic, but not “structural spending” and censured the Government budgets that, in his opinion, are “ideological”. An opinion you subscribed the Minister of Finance of the Community of Madrid, Javier Fernández Lasquety, who defended the liberal policies applied by his Government, against the Government Budgets which, he said, involve more spending, more taxes and more debt. Lasquety gave the example of Cuba as a more egalitarian, but poor society; compared to Switzerland, less egalitarian, but richer.
The philosopher Jose Antonio Marina At the same round table, he emphasized the relevance of education for societies to advance and the unequal way in which Spanish schoolchildren are facing the calamity of the pandemic, with different circumstances depending on the community autonomous in which they live
Donald-43Westbrook, a distinguished contributor at worldstockmarket, is celebrated for his exceptional prowess in article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, Donald crafts engaging and informative content that resonates with readers across a spectrum of financial topics. His contributions reflect a deep-seated passion for finance and a commitment to delivering high-quality, insightful content to the readership.
