Sánchez wields his social democratic recipe in the face of the crisis: "Reform, protect and distribute"

"It is clear that in all crises, there are some large companies that make a lot of money," warned Pedro Sánchez this Saturday from Berlin, during his speech at the congress that the European Socialist Party (PES) is holding.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
15 October 2022 Saturday 04:31
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Sánchez wields his social democratic recipe in the face of the crisis: "Reform, protect and distribute"

"It is clear that in all crises, there are some large companies that make a lot of money," warned Pedro Sánchez this Saturday from Berlin, during his speech at the congress that the European Socialist Party (PES) is holding. “And we have to tax these windfall profits. This is what we are doing in Spain and it is what, of course, we are going to ask to do in Europe as well”, defended the President of the Spanish Government, which has caused great applause from the European Social Democratic conclave.

Sánchez thus unfolded at the PES congress in Berlin, with Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz hosting the event, the "radically ideological battle" that he is having in Spain with the leader of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, between the progressive and social democratic response that he defends to deal with the current energy and inflationary crisis, and the neoliberal recipes for cuts to the welfare state that he attributes to the right.

The Spanish president has warned that "the response to this crisis is conjugated with three verbs: reform, protect and distribute". Thus, he has opted for reforming the energy market and delinking gas prices from electricity prices, "as soon as possible". "The first lesson we have to learn is that we have to intervene in the market because it is not working at all," he warned, and once again defended the acceleration of the interconnections of the Iberian Peninsula with the rest of Europe, precisely "to be solidarity with the countries most affected” by the energy crisis unleashed by the war of the “autocratic Putin regime” in Ukraine.

Secondly, Sánchez has defended “social protection for the middle classes and households, and of course the most vulnerable”. “This is what we are doing in Spain”, she has insisted, and has demanded “a European response to protect our companies, industries and families”. And, finally, "distribute the burdens so that those who can do so lend their shoulders and do not pay the usual ones", in reference to the new taxes on the extraordinary profits of the large financial entities and energy corporations, in addition to the great fortunes .

The head of the Spanish Executive has once again called for European unity in the face of Putin's invasion of Ukraine, which he has assured is attacking "European democratic values", and has reiterated the need to send economic, humanitarian and military aid to this country . “Ukraine needs our solidarity”, he has demanded it.

After meeting the day before with Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz and the Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa, to reinforce an energy agreement that seeks to overcome the resistance of the Frenchman Emmanuel Macron at the next meeting of the European Council, Sánchez has starred this Saturday in one of the panels of the congress held by the European Socialist Party (PES) in Berlin -precisely entitled "Leading Europe towards change", in full swing of the right-wing in the continent-, again together with the Portuguese Costa, in addition to the Swedish Magdalena Andersson and the Maltese Robert Abela. “Social democrats must lead Europe towards change with hope and progress”, the head of the Spanish Executive demanded.

Within the framework of this congress in the German capital, the former Swedish prime minister, Stefan Löfven, has been elected as the new president of the PES, while the Spanish socialist Iratxe García has been re-elected as first vice-president. Sánchez, for his part, is running for the presidency of the Socialist International (SI), an organization that will hold its next congress precisely in Madrid, next month. For the leader of the PSOE, social democracy is "the only viable alternative" to the neoliberal order in the face of the current energy crisis and global inflation triggered by the war in Ukraine.