“The PP has always been in favor of equal and non-transferable permits.” This phrase was uttered in 2018 by PP MP Carmen Dueñas to justify her vote in favor of admitting to the processing of a bill from Unidos Podemos. A few weeks have passed since the motion of censure that expelled Mariano Rajoy from the government and from where he had previously vetoed this option. Having no possibility of preventing the processing, the PP chose to vote for it. Today, Alberto Núñez Feijóo wants to end this rule that, according to social organizations, prevents men from ignoring parenthood.
This was announced on Monday by the PP leader in a speech before his National Executive Committee in which he appealed to the “freedom” of choice of parents to end a rule introduced just five years ago. In fact, the PP took to the Constitutional Court the royal decree-law with which the coalition government of the PSOE and Unidos Podemos implemented this system in 2019, given the imminent electoral lead that year. The Court of Guarantees rejected the appeal.
That is, the PP vetoed the government to legislate to increase paternity leave until it was equal to that of mothers, and to make the first six weeks non-transferable, to prevent men from delegating to women, as was very common before. according to Social Security data. Then, seeing that he was left alone, he voted for it and declared himself their number one defender. Then he appealed to the Constitutional Court. And now he wants Congress to eliminate them.
“We need to advance paternity and maternity leave to make them broader and more flexible,” he announced before an executive committee reduced by the absence of important barons. Feijóo assured that “families are the ones who know best how to organize their homes” and concluded: “The PP is not going to get involved in the distribution of maternal and paternal leave. They will be free to use them during the baby’s first year.
Feijóo wants to introduce this change in the Conciliation Law, which, he said, is being finalized by the Deputy Secretary for Equality, Ana Alós. The PP leader announced that he would meet in “the coming weeks” with “social and economic agents because nothing should be imposed on those who build this country.”
The PP leader said that “being a father or mother cannot be heroic” in Spain. “We cannot allow a generation that goes through life with its tongue hanging out because it cannot take care of its work and its children,” he stressed. “We cannot allow reconciliation to fall to grandmothers or grandfathers, who deserve all the recognition and affection. “This country must roll out the red carpet for anyone who has the courage to bring a person into the world,” he said.
Feijóo did not foresee any other measures in this law, except to reiterate an idea that he has already launched on several occasions and that he has implemented in Galicia: that education from zero to three years old be free. The PP model is not based on the promotion of public nursery schools, but on the subsidization of subsidized and private centers to parents, regardless of their price.
This is the same model that Juan Manuel Moreno imposed in Andalusia. The Andalusian government ended up giving up tens of millions of euros of European funds because it was mandatory to allocate them to the public network and its policy is to subsidize the private network.
