Escrivá defends that his proposal “does not cut any pension” and gives “room to the system”

Following the announcement of the Spanish Government’s proposal to raise social contributions by 0.5 points for ten years, starting in 2023, to seek to balance Social Security accounts in the medium and long term, the Minister of Inclusion and Social Security, Jose Luis Escrivá, has defended that the approach does not suppose “to cut any pension”. In addition, it has added that it generates a “safety valve that gives clearance” to the system.

In statements in La Sexta, Escrivá has said that “negotiations are going well“, but he has avoided going into more details about this mechanism in which the Spanish Government and social agents have given each other a deadline for the agreement until November 15.

If a consensus is not reached, the Social Security will develop the mechanism that must be introduced in the parliamentary processing of the first leg of the pension reform agreed in July.

CCOO considers the proposal interesting, but sees “uncertainties”

The Secretary General of CCOO, Unai Sordo, has stated that the approach is “interesting“, although it generates” some uncertainties. “According to Sordo, the proposal is open to negotiation and “it is not the final proposal, not even remotely”.

Sordo agrees with the vision of the Spanish Government that it is necessary to act on income to face future spending on pensions. He also believes that it is a price rise “very limited”, which will not have negative effects on employment and will have negative effects on economic stability, since it guarantees 15 million future pensioners that they will receive a pension from the public system.

However, the union leader considers that it will be necessary to adopt more measures related to the structure of income in addition to this increase in quotas, because it is “very limited” and only with it the future challenge will not be able to be faced of the higher spending on pensions.

The CEOE asks the Spanish Government to fulfill the promises that are signed at the table

The president of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE), Antonio Garamendi, has promised “responsibility” on the part of the employer when studying the proposals on the pension system reform, but has asked the Government of Spain keep promises to be signed on the table.

Upon his arrival at an event with businessmen in Madrid, he confirmed that the Executive sent them “a sheet and a half” on Tuesday afternoon with the positions of the Spanish Government, to which they have to respond on November 15. The president of the entrepreneurs has criticized the “little margin” to be able to answer and has insisted that he does not understand “this game”.

“There are two themes: expectation, seeing what we are going to be taught, and concern. All this media noise does recently in favor of working more seriously at the table on concrete or serious proposals,” he commented.

The president of the CEOE has assured that the employers will participate in the dialogue table “always with loyalty” and has questioned the attitude of United We Can, partners of the coalition Government, regarding the tripartite agreements reached.

Political party reactions

The PSOE spokesman in the Congress of Deputies, Hector Gomez, for his part, has defended the proposal put forward by Minister Escrivá and has indicated that within the framework of social dialogue, “it is important to lay the foundations for sustainability and guarantee the future of pensions.”

Gómez has recalled that for the moment it is just a proposal and that the final objective of the Spanish Government is achieve a long-range agreement and a long journey since the measure will only be a success if it is consensual.

The PNV spokesperson in the Congress of Deputies, Aitor EstebanEsteban has said that, in principle, the proposal does not seem “bad” to them, and has pointed out that “we will have to see the whole of what we want to do”.

“It will be necessary to see the small print, but perhaps it is a measure that has to be adopted, although it is necessary to see how it is in the set of the rest of those that must be taken and of which the Ministry has not yet said anything,” he concluded.

The deputy spokesperson for United We Can in Congress, Sofia Castañón, has stated that his parliamentary group is unaware of the announced measure and has warned that any rise in contributions aimed at recovering the Social Security Reserve Fund, popularly known as ‘pension money box’, cannot be at the expense of power acquisitive of the working classes.

For this reason, the deputy of the purple training has conjectured that, for this increase in contributions, one should be talking about “raising wages” and improving the situation of the self-employed and SMEs.

The spokesperson for Vox in Congress, Ivan Espinosa de los Monteros, has defended a reduction in contributions to facilitate job creation and thus improve the income of the public pension system, and not raise them as proposed by Minister José Luis Escrivá.