"Nobody responsible can support a pension reform proposal that does serve to get to the elections, but not to guarantee the sustainability of the system." With this argument, the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, justified the vote against his group to the government decree law that is being debated in Congress today.
And not only does it not guarantee the sustainability of the system, stressed the popular leader, but what it does is increase contributions, with what this means for problems for job creation, but it can open the door to a drop in pensions . Feijóo refers to the second additional provision of the decree-law, which leaves for 2025 the possibility of proposing corrective measures if spending on pensions has increased, and for this he points out that "from the Report on the Impact of the AIRef Measures , the Government will negotiate with the social partners to send a proposal to the Commission for Monitoring and Evaluation of the agreements of the Pact of Toledo to correct, in a balanced way, the excess spending on pensions by means of an increase in contributions or another alternative formula of increasing income or a reduction in pension spending as a percentage of GDP or a combination of both measures".
In addition, Feijóo stressed that he cannot approve a pension reform "without information, without consensus, without the Toledo Pact, without sustainability and with all the reports from all the independent agencies, from Funcas to the Bank of Spain, against, and The most important is that of the independent Fiscal Authority, which is the one who will have to prepare these reports from 2025.
Regarding the PP proposal for the pension reform, Alberto Núñez Feijóo summed it up as "job creation, having more contributors, with more contained quotas and updating pensions in accordance with the CPI". The PP recalls that it has voted in favor of the two pension increases in accordance with the CPI and that the only one that has frozen pensions, contrary to what Pedro Sánchez says, was the PSOE when Zapatero was president, and being the president of the Socialist deputy government, I vote in favor of freezing.
During a press conference held by Feijóo in Lisbon, together with the mayor of the capital, Carlos Moedas, the president of the PP took the opportunity to request a change in the electoral legislation and that, as in Portugal, in the municipal elections mayor be elected on candidate from the most voted list. And that this is done automatically, since in Spain the designation of the head of the most voted list is applied, only if there is no prior agreement that designates another candidate because he obtains more votes from the elected councillors.
Regarding the open debate in Spain on surrogacy after maternity by this method by the artist Ana García Obregón, the president of the PP stressed that "there is no pronouncement from the PP" in favor or against the legalization of this practice, since in the last ordinary congress, what the PP raised is the need to "open a thoughtful, serious and solid debate", in which the bioethics committee and other experts intervene "to order the matter".
For Feijóo, what is clear is that something must be done, because in Spain surrogacy is illegal, but children born outside of Spain through this practice are registered as Spaniards and as children of those who have opted for this method of gestation, which is an inconsistency.
It must also be taken into account, stressed the president of the PP, that there are countries, even within Europe, in which this practice is allowed, such as Portugal, with certain conditions, and that affects the fact that there are Spaniards who access this type of maternity, in those countries. All this, Feijóo stressed, requires a serene debate, which in his opinion cannot take place now, but which is necessary "in the face of a controversial social fact."
Feijóo is in Lisbon on a 24-hour trip in which he already met on Wednesday with the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Portugal, the equivalent of the Spanish PP, Luis Montenegro. Today, Thursday, the president of the PP, who is traveling accompanied by the party's Institutional Vice-Secretary, Esteban González Pons, began the day with an interview with the mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas, and will end with a meeting with the President of the Republic , Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. With whom Feijóo does not plan to maintain any contact is with the Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, nor with any member of his cabinet, a socialist, who in 2022 achieved an absolute majority, after a coalition government legislature with parties to the left. of the Portuguese Socialist Party.
