Employment and housing. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, entered the campaign yesterday from Barcelona, planting on the stage of the campaign the newly known employment data. With more than 20.6 million members of the Social Security, a record of the historical series and a drop in unemployment of 76,000 people in April, Sánchez exhibited the successes in "what really worries the people" . "A success - he added - not of the Government, but of the country, and the failure of the usual malastrus".
"Spain breaks the record of employment while the opposition breaks the record of despair", summed up the president in a meeting held under the photovoltaic panel of the Forum, in front of a considerable attendance - about 2,500 people - and with the intervention of the socialist candidate to the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, and the mayor of Sant Adrià de Besòs, Filo Cañete.
And these successes in a matter as important as employment means that "never before in Spain have there been so many employed people", taking into account the environment, "in the midst of war and after the pandemic", he remarked.
The head of the Central Executive also focused on other matters with a clear social content, such as housing. Here he once again highlighted and defended the recent housing law approved by Congress, the first of democracy, which will, he said, facilitate access to "decent and affordable" housing.
Sánchez reviewed some of the star social measures of the legislature, such as the increase in pensions, the interprofessional minimum wage or the labor reform. "We are defending what the majority thinks", goes. And after a brief environmental reference with the Doñana park as the protagonist, which served him to attack those who deny the climate emergency "by action or by omission", he promised that he will devote all the necessary resources to protect the citizens facing the consequences of the war in Ukraine and the drought.
With regard to Catalonia, Sánchez recalled the work of his government to "restore coexistence" and the benefits brought by European funds to "reindustrialize Catalonia and Spain". "The Government is contributing to the reindustrialisation of Catalonia. What will we not do when the wind blows in our favor?” he proclaimed.
Sánchez also threw a hood at candidate Collboni. In his speech he recalled that the city's best years were "between 1979 and 2011". "When he was older he was with socialist mayors", he pointed out, "because wealth was created and there was social justice, business was taken care of, but the person was put first". With the recipe to "create wealth and distribute it to the social majority", Sánchez proclaimed that the time has come to "recover the best version of Barcelona" at the hands of a new socialist mayor: Jaume Collboni.
In Moncloa they are aware of the importance of winning the mayoralty of Barcelona and in fact they see "very real" possibilities that Jaume Collboni will get it next 28- M. Proof of this is that the president plans to close the campaign election again in Barcelona, next May 26.
For his part, the candidate for Barcelona defended precisely the same recipe as the president to "recover the pride" of being from Barcelona. "A roof and a job, these will be my occupations because they are the concerns of the people, with affordable housing, quality employment and a safe city", he summarized, and contrasted his model with that of Mayor Ada Colau and the former mayor and new candidate Xavier Trias, who yesterday referred to the "problems" to make ends meet for those who earn 3,000 euros a month. “Where does this man live? Who is he talking to?” he wondered.
Yesterday's meeting finally did not have the intervention of the first secretary of the PSC, Salvador Illa, due to the delay accumulated by the plenary session of the Parliament, where at the last minute an important law proposal was debated and voted on, on the measures that will to apply the Government against the severe drought that Catalonia is experiencing.
