CEOE President Antonio Garamendi on Tuesday defended the freedom of companies to set up wherever they want and denounced measures such as “à la carte” taxes on energy or banks and other cost increases adopted by the government, which are causing many problems for companies.
“I don’t really like Madrid-style tripe, but I do like Madrid-style taxation.. I think that things have to be managed in such a way that companies consider it interesting to join a system. I am not talking about breaking education or health at all, quite the contrary. A very efficient and very supportive State can be created and managed, but by being much more intelligent in the application of economic policy. And the way in which they manage each other is amply demonstrated by looking only at the Spanish map,” he said in this regard during his speech at the FAES Campus 2024 organized by the FAES Foundation, collected by Europe Press.
Garamendi asked to be “prudent” with the “messages of punishment” launched against the business world, such as those that took place when Ferrovial decided to change headquarters, and stressed that what governments should do are attractive policies to come or stay. Spain. “But we are going in the opposite direction, because taxes or even the breakdown of the market unity generate more problems,” he warned.
Asked whether the State should be present in some companies, Garamendi replied that “it can be”, but “not control” and avoid the temptation to place “friends” there. “What you cannot do is control. You can be there, but not control. You can be there, yes, because it is still necessary to protect what is the Spanishness of companies. The problem is, but with this government and with another one that comes, the temptation to place friends. I think that the drama is there, if we are professionals, there are a lot of funds that are there, but not on the boards of directors”, he stressed.
Legal security for businesses
The CEOE leader stressed that companies need legal security, regulatory stability and “quality” standards, because sometimes “what they say is not understood”, and all this would favor the arrival of investments in the country.
In this sense, he criticized the fact that “the rules are changed in the middle of the game“, as was done with the 2021 labor reform by approving, without the participation of social agents, the predominance of regional agreements over sectoral agreements, which, for Garamendi, represents a “brutal rupture” of market unity and trust. a lack of legal security, it is a change in things, and it is what makes us believe less in being able to invest,” he denounced.
Garamendi stressed that “radicalism” has taken hold in Spain, because there is talk of “good and bad, rich and poor” and it seems that the figure of the businessman “is targeted by many people.”
“They say that SMEs have to grow, but when they grow a little, they buzz you,” said the entrepreneur, who defended that companies “have to make money” and that many of their shareholders are Spanish citizens who have invested part of your money or savings in shares. “But they work in the opposite direction, it is about the distribution of poverty and not the creation of wealth,” he criticized.
