Yesterday, the catchy song from the Verano azul series enlivened the wait of those attending the event that the PP held at Casa Seat to publicize the main lines of the economic program that Alberto Núñez Feijóo will deploy if he arrives at Moncloa, with legal certainty , stability and responsible government as emblems and a tax reduction for income of less than 40,000 euros as a star measure.
But this score, which also resonates with the promise to reach 22 million Social Security affiliates in the next legislature, still does not have a conductor.
Despite the expectation aroused in Barcelona, the head of the opposition continued to keep for one more day the name of who his Minister of Economy will be if he becomes Prime Minister, so Vice President Nadia Calviño can display her balance without an antagonist with the one to debate, as you wish, in the public arena.
In the absence of this specificity, no less, Feijóo did reel off in a lengthy speech before prominent representatives of the Catalan business world some of the initiatives with which he wants to turn Spain into one of the three fastest growing economies in the entire European Union, which They are summarized in the creation of employment and the attraction of investment after a period of five years characterized, in his opinion, by stagnation.
"Spain cannot afford four more years of economic populism," said the leader of the PP, for whom the coalition government of PSOE and Unidas Podemos has "impoverished Spanish families like never before", therefore, among the first measures that He will promote if he reaches the presidency, he cited the relief in personal income tax for the middle classes and the attraction of foreign talent, as well as the brake on the national brain drain, to create quality jobs.
The recipe of the PP, in any case, is based on growth, and despite the fact that Spain has finally recovered the pre-pandemic levels in this indicator, for Feijóo there are no reasons for enthusiasm when the country leads the unemployment rankings, with special incidence among young people and those over 50 years of age, and carries one of the heaviest public debts of the states of the European Union: "We have intense dark clouds on the horizon," he warned.
After referring to an imprecise boost to research and development so that Spain becomes a "preferred destination" for companies that are committed to artificial intelligence, the conservative candidate did not forget the traditional sectors of economic development and, before an audience in which were Jaume Guardiola, president of the Cercle d'Economia; Antoni Cañete, president of the Pimec employers' association; o Joaquín Gay de Montellà, former president of Foment del Treball and one of the speakers, highlighted the importance of the automotive sector – “I also had a Seat Ibiza”, he recalled – and tourism. "El Prat airport must become one of the most important in the world," offered the leader of the PP, who also announced a renewed plan to modernize the hotel industry.
But if Feijóo was critical of the Government, whose structure of 22 ministries and hundreds of advisers and senior officials he intends to lighten, he was no less critical of his parliamentary partners, especially the independentistas, whose "obsession with deploying the identity narrative" has "distracted ” to Catalan society of its historic commitment to well-being and progress, and was the main person responsible for the “havoc” of the process.
"We already know how that movie ends," said the candidate for the presidency, who defended the unity of all Spaniards as a shared path towards a "better life" and asked to turn the page on some demands that ended up leading to 8,000 companies, according to figures that he wielded, to leave Catalonia.
Claiming to be heir to the "reformism" that made entry into the euro possible under the presidency of José María Aznar, Feijóo is now asking to face the challenges of the climate emergency with "guarantees of an orderly and fair energy transition." Even so, although he recognized that Spain is a world power in clean energy and can solve the scarcity of water thanks to it, he flatly refused to give up nuclear.
