Pedro Sánchez calls on his partners in Congress to be able to implement the general state budgets that the Minister of Finance will present to the Lower House in the coming weeks. “It is time for dialogue and agreement,” said the President of the Government at the meeting of the Socialist parliamentary group this Monday. “We extend our hand to the parliamentary groups to continue consolidating economic growth and employment, social progress and coexistence,” he added.
Sánchez announced that the government would present new general state budgets that, as he said, “will allow us to consolidate public investments in these years and provide almost 5 billion euros more to communities and municipalities. 5 billion euros more for schools, hospitals and nursing homes, which may not arrive if other parties forget their voters and get carried away by sectarianism,” he said.
“It is clear that the government has been there for a long time and that we must sit down and negotiate measures that solve the problems and improve people’s lives. In the Executive, we are clear. Let’s do it. My hand is outstretched. The door of Moncloa is open to anyone who wants to negotiate and add value,” warned the president, who was keen to banish the idea that an executive in parliamentary minority is synonymous with instability.
“Parliamentary fragmentation is inevitable, but not the blockade. Governments without a majority have passed the Divorce Act, the Marriage Equality Act, the Gender Violence Act, the Dependency Act or the Equality Act. Governments without a majority have overcome the greatest pandemic and economic recession of the last century, created the minimum living income, revalued pensions and increased the salaries of millions of workers. If you want it, you can,” he responded to criticism of the weakness of his executive in Congress.
The leader of the socialists also outlined a horizon of reforms and an agenda loaded with political content for the months following the latest parliamentary setbacks of his executive. For example, he confirmed that this Tuesday the Council of Ministers would definitively promote the announced plan for democratic regeneration, of which he did not give details. And he promised measures that would also deepen the welfare state in areas such as housing, the reduction of working hours or pensions.
Regarding one of the major pending reforms, that of the financing system, the President of the Government insisted on his argument that his party’s commitment is to deepen public services, regardless of the territory and beyond the “singularities” of each of them. “Our regional financing model is the same in all territories: to protect the welfare state while taking into account the particularities of each territory. “The opposition’s objective is to privatize public services and confront the territories.”
