The Minister of Finance has defended the General State Budgets, assuring that it is a “project of the country, not of the Government.” “They lend”, he said, “confidence and certainty in the face of discouragement and hope” and this despite the fact that both the Bank of Spain and the AiRef have labeled them outdated and unreal. Montero has taken advantage of his intervention in defense of the State accounts by announcing the Government’s disposition to lower the VAT on masks from 21 to 4%.
Montero has taken advantage of the announcement of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer about the imminence of a vaccine against Covid to paint a clear picture before the country that only needs a few Budgets to overcome “the most serious health, economic and social crisis since the war. ” The minister has accused PP and Vox, two parties that have presented amendments to the totality of the Budgets and, consequently, demand their return to the Government, of “irresponsible”. In his opinion, the project designed by the Executive reflects “the plurality of society and what the Spanish have voted for.”
Montero recalled that Spain lives with the PP Budgets, the last ones drawn up by Cristóbal Montoro, since 2018. Accounts that “hinder the country’s recovery” and that are clearly useless.
“The Government is not going to renounce the public space that must be built from politics even if it means giving up something,” he said before assuring that approving the accounts “should not be interpreted as giving a blank check to the Executive”.
The minister insisted that the Budgets presented by the Government are “the way to channel European funds,” in reference to the 140,000 million that the EU is willing to send to Spain to face the consequences of the pandemic and, furthermore, he added, “they are a social contract to close generational, economic and territorial gaps”.
The head of the Treasury has not hesitated to point out the positive economic data recorded by the country before the Covid crisis, an evolution that however, in her opinion, hid serious vulnerabilities. To overcome them, he pointed out, the coalition government drew up a road map that was nevertheless truncated by the pandemic and the sudden stop that this meant for the economy.
“We urgently need to tackle the pandemic because to the extent that we are capable of doing so, the economy will rebound,” he said. For this, he has asked for “political unity” and has rejected the idea that Spain is more affected economically and healthily by the Covid than other countries due to the lack of efficiency in government management.
According to Montero, if the Executive had not adopted the measures implemented during the pandemic, the drop in GDP would have reached 25% and more than three million jobs would have been lost. The ministry has announced its willingness to lower the VAT on masks from 21% to 4% and this after having resisted this measure since last April. “We are a sensitive, attentive government that listens to the people,” he said. The minister explained that yesterday the European Commission confirmed that it would not open any infringement procedure to Spain if such a reduction was made.
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