Josep Sánchez Llibre has been re-elected this Monday as president of Foment del Treball with a critical speech against the central government, which he accused of maintaining "populist positions" and of not taking into account the "productive economy". “We also regret that in the 21st century there is talk of hidden powers, cigar lords and media conspiracies. These are statements that we have not heard for more than 30 years and that go in the direction of seeking confrontation, instead of calling for consensus to overcome the serious economic and social situation we are facing," he told the organization's assembly. , which guaranteed its continuity for another four years.
At the moment, he argued, "the business fabric is supporting a rise in the prices of energy and raw materials that are not transferred with all their intensity to consumers, reducing business margins." And he raised the tone by criticizing that "without prior dialogue" it is proposed to raise the fiscal pressure on certain sectors (energy and banking) "alleging extraordinary benefits." “Actions of this magnitude destroy legal security and also private property. In addition, it does not take into account that millions of Spaniards have invested a good part of their savings and retirement expectations in these companies. "With these measures - he continued - in just one day the Government of Spain has made these sectors lose billions of euros".
For all these reasons, he insisted on regretting the “interventionism in the distribution of corporate profits that can remind me – an issue that worries me a lot – of populist messages and actions by some South American governments. It is probably a consequence of the influence and weight of one of the two partners, United We Can, in the state government."
For the president of Foment, he has been "too frivolous with inflation." And, despite this, no measure has been taken to mitigate it, such as the deflation of the personal income tax rate. “We regret that while the State Government demands sacrifices from the self-employed and from citizens in general, no measure is applied nor is any sacrifice or effort required from public administrations so that they go in the same direction of better efficiency in public spending and increase of savings”. He recalled, in this regard, that the CEOE and Foment have already put two proposals on the table to increase collection by 93,000 million euros. The CEOE through savings of 60,000 million and Foment by bringing out 33,000 million from the shadow economy.
Given the seriousness of the situation, he warned that "politics should focus on weaving great political, economic and social complicity to deal with the situation and the structural reforms that are required" without ideological confrontations. “From Foment and from the CEOE we have given multiple signs of willingness to dialogue. We consider it very pernicious to create two sides; the powerful against the working middle class. It is not good to criminalize and demonize the businessman, we are not the bad guys in the movie as it wants to be seen, ”he said. On the contrary, he added, “we are the main guarantors of social cohesion, we invest in generating wealth and new jobs, and we help reduce social inequalities”. And for this reason he called on the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to open the doors to dialogue in order to achieve an income pact between all the social agents and also between all the administrations.
