The PP did not wait until Thursday to reveal its vote for the pension reform approved by the Government by decree law. The disqualifications received by Mariano Rajoy from the Minister of Social Security, José Luis Escriva, and the fact that he has not sent him the information that he requested in order to analyze the reform in full has led the PP to announce already, three days before that it be voted in Congress, that the PP's vote on the decree will be "no".
"Given that in the last few hours the Government has not provided the required information on the pension reform, the person in charge of the PP in this matter will officially call his interlocutor to request it again," the PP announced tonight. PP sources expressed their surprise at the government's attitude: "We do not understand that Spaniards are denied access to all the data and economic and financial analyzes that have supported this reform on a key issue for our future."
Until now, the PP, like other groups, has only received from the Government, as documentation of the pension reform, according to popular sources, a power point, and with that the popular ones are not willing to compromise their vote. "The PP is not going to support the reform based solely on the power point that we know from a government that has accustomed us to lying repeatedly."
In addition, now, the PP has more arguments to maintain its criticism, since the independent tax authority published a very critical report on Friday that agrees with the PP in that it does not guarantee the sustainability of the system in the medium and long term. "The numerous reports that question its viability offer us more security, the most categorical being that of AiRef, which was directed until a few years ago by the author of the proposed reform," said the PP sources.
In addition, the PP criticizes that the reform "has not been agreed with the social and economic agents and that also" it has been done outside the Toledo Pact. That is why he announces that if he does not receive the technical and documented justification of the reform tomorrow morning, the PP will vote against the proposal.
Already in the morning, the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, had expressed his anger at Minister Escrivá's disqualifications of his criticism. "That the leader of the opposition defends that the reform be carried out with consensus and that it be carried out in the long term" is translated by the government, he complained, "in which the leader of the opposition wants the elderly to be left without a pension", which that in his opinion it can only be understood in the drift of the Government that has decided to "use all possible legitimate and non-legitimate tools to attack the opposition."
At an informative breakfast organized by the Nueva economía Forum, in which he presented his candidate in Castilla-La Mancha, Francisco Núñez, the PP president wanted to make clear the PP's position on pensions. "There is no doubt about our commitment to sustaining pensions, with maintaining purchasing power and ensuring that the system is long-lasting and sustainable." They are others, he stressed, that is, the Government, the PSOE, "those who have on their curriculum have voted in favor of the freezing of pensions, of the reduction of the remuneration of all public employees and of having voted in favor of an adjustment in multimillion-dollar public spending that affected the decrease in the budget for health, education, and social policies".
Feijóo insisted on his criticism of the pension reform "made without transparency or consensus", and which, in his opinion, punishes workers, penalizes growth and job creation, supposes a mortgage for the new generations and does not guarantee the sustainability". A statement that is not only his, he recalled, but also that of the Bank of Spain and the Independent Tax Authority.
In addition, Feijóo recalled that the "amnesiac Minister Escrivá" said of the rise in prices, which the president of the PP has criticized, that they were already high, six points more than the OECD average, and that any modification "should not imply a change in the prices". For this reason, he returned the disqualifications that the minister directed at him: "Perhaps Mr. Escrivá is irresponsible, frivolous, insolvent and lacking in patriotism."
