Half-truths, lies, misleading data. We analyzed, with Comprobado.es, some of the data, statements and information displayed yesterday by the leaders of the PP and PSOE, Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Pedro Sánchez, during the face to face.
Sánchez assured that the former socialist president "did not freeze pensions", in response to Feijóo's accusation of having voted in favor of the measure.
However, Zapatero launched a series of reforms in 2010 to alleviate the economic crisis. A year later, through a decree, the former president froze contributory pensions, but not the minimum, non-contributory ones, or compulsory old-age and disability insurance.
It is false that the PP voted in favor of increasing pensions as Feijóo stated last night. In 2021, the Congress of Deputies approved the bill to guarantee the purchasing power of pensions, but it did so with the vote against the party of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. The result of the vote was 176 votes in favour, 148 against and 6 abstentions.
The PP did not vote in favor of the processing of this bill in the Senate either. He submitted a veto motion and 14 amendments.
The popular leader told the truth when stating that currently, according to EPA data, there are fewer self-employed than in 2019. The current number of self-employed stands at almost 3,099,000 people while in the same quarter of 2019, there were 3,106 ,000 self-employed, about 7,000 more.
In the same sense, Feijóo also assured that "we have 43,000 less self-employed according to the EPA than in the last year", data that is also true. If we compare the EPA for the first quarter of 2023 with that of the first quarter of 2022, that figure cited by Feijóo would come out of 43,000 fewer self-employed workers.
It is going viral that Feijoo's data is false, but Feijoo's text is clear: "We have 43,000 fewer self-employed workers according to the EPA than in the last year." Feijoo is not comparing with the number of self-employed when Sánchez arrived at the Government, but with the last year.
Again, the popular leader did not lie when he reproached Sánchez for not being able to recover GDP between 2019 and the first quarter of 2023.
The recovery data is true: Spain did not recover the level of gross domestic product of the last quarter of 2019 at real prices (discounting the effect of inflation) until the first quarter of 2023, as reported by maldita.es.
According to data provided by Eurostat, the price of electricity in Spain is 23.5% above the EU average, so the popular leader's statement is true.
On the other hand, the figure for the price of electricity has risen by 40.5% compared to the first half of 2018, so if we take this reference, the first half of the statement is also true.
When Sánchez came to the government, the 2018 State Pact was renewed, with the support of all the political groups except Vox, as stated by the President of the Government.
On the other hand, it is also true that, as Feijóo said, Podemos did not sign the previous State Pact of 2018, which was approved in 2017, under the Rajoy government. The purple formation decided to abstain and not support the document as there is neither a calendar nor budgets that can guarantee its execution. EH Bildu also abstained on this occasion.
Yesterday it was announced that the judge filed the espionage of Pegasus. In the press release from the National Court, the judge decided to agree to the file due to the "absolute" lack of legal cooperation from Israel, which did not answer the request sent by the National Court and frustrated the continuation of the investigation.
Therefore, the statement by the leader of the PP holding Sánchez responsible for filing the case is false, since according to the judge, the lack of collaboration was from Israel.
The former president of the Xunta assured that during his tenure, Galicia was "the autonomous community that increased the debt the least." However, data from Maldita.es confirms that the claim is false.
Galicia is not the community that has increased its public debt the least, not even in GDP or general terms. Galicia increased public debt over GDP by 10.3% between the second quarters of 2009 and 2022. This makes it the fourth community in which the indicator grew the least, after Madrid (7.6%), the Canary Islands (9 .1%) and Navarre (9.6%).
It is true that during Feijóo's tenure in Galicia, the public debt of the autonomous community approximately tripled (it multiplied by 2.76). It went from 4,282 million euros at the end of the second quarter of 2009, to 11,823 million euros at the end of the second quarter of 2022.
However, in the same period of time the debt went from representing 7.5% of the Community's GDP to 17.8%. In other words, this indicator was multiplied by 2.37 and not by 3.
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This article is part of the content disseminated by Comprobado.es, an alliance of verifiers and media to fight against misinformation about the general elections on July 23.
https://maldita.es/malditodato/20230711/fact-checking-cara-a-cara-sanchez-feijoo/
