The Government will lower VAT on gas from the current 21% to 5% starting in October. This has been announced by Pedro Sánchez in an interview on Cadena SER in which he has assured that it is a “reasonable” measure given that winter is coming and that it will be in force until December 31, although he has already anticipated that it may be extended. further depending on the evolution of the situation due to the war in Ukraine.
“We are in a context of high uncertainty derived from the war, but without entering into euphoria we cannot fall into catastrophism,” said the president, who has assured that the Government will continue to take measures to “protect the middle and working class ” which he considers to have become “vulnerable” due to the attack by Vladimir Putin. The socialist has argued that Spain’s economic data is good and has referred to tourism, fiscal consolidation or job creation: “The duty of politics is to transfer certainty, it is not to gild the pill, but neither is it to enter a path catastrophic”.
The decision that the president has advanced by resuming the course is in line with the tax reduction measures that the Government has been taking to lower the electricity bill and has taken the opportunity to defend the Iberian exceptionality that the EU authorized to put a cap on the price of the gas with which electricity is produced in Spain and Portugal. Thus, he has ensured that if it were not for this mechanism, the price of electricity would be more exorbitant, as is the case in other European countries.
“Feijóo is docile with the interests that put him at the head of the PP”
Sánchez has stoked the PP for his “denier opposition”: “Mr. Feijóo is quite docile with those interests that put him at the head of the PP.” One of the interests with which the socialist considers that the former president has gone “hand in hand” has been with the energy companies. “In this legislature, with Casado and Feijóo, neither with the pandemic nor now with the war have I had any kind of help,” said Sánchez, who has assured that his telephone number “is open to all political leaders.”
One of the aspects of the PP opposition that most unnerves Sánchez is the use of terrorism, now due to the approach of the ETA members Txapote and Henri Parot to prisons in Euskadi. Sánchez has assured that “nothing is being remembered, that they are going to serve their sentences” and that what the Government is doing is “complying with prison policy.” “When the PP governed, it brought hundreds of ETA prisoners to Euskadi while ETA killed and had people kidnapped. What we have seen, unfortunately during all these years, is the spurious and shameless use by the PP of the anti-terrorist policy”, recalled the president, who has assured that what the PSOE did in the opposition was “forge great agreements” in the fight against ETA or jihadist terrorism.
Sánchez says there will be more military spending: “There will be an agreement”
The president has once again defended the operation of the coalition, although he has marked distances with the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, on one of the issues that currently separates them most in the face of the negotiation of the Budget project: military spending. Sánchez has assured that there will be an increase in the allocation for Defense, contrary to what the leader of United We Can in the Government suggested the other day. “In the end, like everything, it will be a dialogue, a negotiation and there will be an agreement,” said Sánchez, who has taken for granted that the public accounts will go ahead with the usual partners of the Executive, despite the fact that the allies have shown themselves in against that intention to increase military spending.
“The context of war brings into the equation the need to deter a nuclear power under Putin’s presidency in Europe. Deterrence is very important”, Sánchez defended, who, beyond pointing to the war in Ukraine as one of the reasons for raising defense spending, has tried to justify it by socioeconomic variables in a national context. “Remunerations have not been updated for the troops and sailors since 2005. We have raised them in 2021. 207 million that we have consolidated in 2022”, Sánchez pointed out, referring to the salaries of the military: 100,000 qualified jobs spread throughout Spain“ . Thus, he has recognized that the same is not recognized in Madrid, but he has pointed out territories such as Albacete, Ferrol, Euskadi, Cartagena or Cádiz where “the defense industry is very important. “We are not only talking about dissuasion and fulfilling our commitments, but we are also talking about the economy, companies, jobs and territorial cohesion. We are talking about cybersecurity ”, he has settled.
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