In the main hall of the headquarters of the Cervantes Institute in Madrid, surrounded by almost all of his Cabinet (the first vice-president, María Jesús Montero, appeared at the same time in the Senate) and various personalities, including the leaders of the UGT and CCOO José María Álvarez and Unai Sordo, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, gave this Wednesday his now traditional conference to start the political year.
In a speech read by means of a half-hour prompter, Sánchez confirmed that the next Council of Ministers will present the trajectory of the deficit, which he called a “spending ceiling”, set before the summer in the Congress of Deputies for Catalonia. and which constitutes the first step to advance in the General State Budgets, extended this year by the Executive itself. He also once again boasted of being at the head of a “clean government”, despite the scandals that threaten him, such as the Koldo affair or the judicial investigation for alleged influence peddling against his wife, Begoña Gómez.
But the bulk of his speech, in which he set six priorities for his government action (competitiveness, strengthening the welfare state, housing and “peace”, among others), consisted of a harsh diatribe against “the barons of the Popular Party”, and more specifically against Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Without naming her by name, Sánchez, who also never mentioned the leader of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, attacked the policies of the Community of Madrid, especially tax policy. The head of the Executive has always contrasted the policies of his Cabinet, which in his opinion are very beneficial for the population, with those of some right-wing autonomous governments that, he literally said, “have not dedicated their resources to citizens, but to private companies, and some with family ties.
Sánchez said that out of 10 euros that the central government gave to Madrid, 3 of them were used by the regional government to “give tax gifts to the richest.” In this sense, he announced new tax increases, which he defended by assuring that “we are going to tax those who already have enough money in the bank to live 100 lives.”
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