Sánchez supports Díaz and asks the employers to return to the negotiation

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, wants to narrow the margin of opposition of Alberto Núñez Feijóo's PP, trying to avoid social conflict, taking advantage of his management in the framework of the EU of the successive crises and conspiring to exhaust the resources that mitigate the effect of inflation on what he calls "the working middle class.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
01 September 2022 Thursday 22:30
16 Reads
Sánchez supports Díaz and asks the employers to return to the negotiation

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, wants to narrow the margin of opposition of Alberto Núñez Feijóo's PP, trying to avoid social conflict, taking advantage of his management in the framework of the EU of the successive crises and conspiring to exhaust the resources that mitigate the effect of inflation on what he calls "the working middle class." In 48 hours, he has dismantled the opposition leader's two main offensives – the request for a debate in the Senate and the repeated demand to lower VAT on gas – and has harshly criticized the PP's attempt to use ETA as a horse of political battle, in a "spurious and shameless" way. But he has also supported Vice President Yolanda Díaz in her request to the CEOE to return to the framework of social negotiation.

He announced, interviewed in Ser, that his Executive will propose a reduction from 21% to 5% of VAT on gas until the end of the year, but he did not rule out prolonging the measure if the war in Ukraine continues to strangle the European economy and shoot up gas prices. Energy. The decision, which its partners at United We Can do not like and which the PSOE itself had ruled out as cosmetic in recent months, pursues, explained Sánchez, "there is fiscal justice, and an equitable distribution of the consequences of Putin's war ”. His recipe, he explained, for a political course marked by electoral commitments will be "always try to protect the working middle class." Faced with the worrying landscape that Núñez Feijóo has tried to install before the coming winter, the president stresses that, without falling "into euphoria", one must not "let oneself be overcome by catastrophism". He alluded to the unique position of Spain in the new energy map that the Russian invasion has thrown up and ruled out that we may suffer cuts in supply next winter, despite admitting that the framework is one of “uncertainty”. Sánchez is strengthened by the EU's endorsement of the Spanish theses on the energy market, by the operation of the Iberian exception in the conformation of the price of electricity and by the alliance with Berlin in defense of the gas connections of the peninsula, Macron through.

With these wickers, the president – ​​who begins the political course next Monday in Moncloa receiving fifty citizens, in a sui generis version of the listening process – does not give up anything before municipal and regional governments and leaves the door open for some minister leads candidacies in important places such as Madrid, Barcelona or Valencia. "We're out to win." And regarding the bosses' blockade of collective bargaining and the announcement of mobilizations by the UGT and CC.OO., Sánchez stressed that he respects the "right to demonstrate" and assumed as his own the call by Díaz to the CEOE to return to the social dialogue. Sánchez does not want hot autumn or cold winter.