Well supported by the employment figures (383,300 more employed) and economic growth of 1.1% in the second quarter, Pedro Sánchez appeared to take stock of the government’s action before the summer break. Not even the terrible inflation data recently known –10.8% in July, the highest since 1984– gave rise to the slightest self-criticism in the president’s speech. It is true that both the active population survey (EPA) and the advance of the GDP are encouraging, and that, contrary to what the doomsayers warned, neither the rise in the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI) nor the labor reform have worsened employment, quite the opposite: it has managed to reduce one of the great evils of the Spanish labor market, that of temporary employment. Nevertheless, with outrageous prices there is no reason for the triumphalism that Sánchez displayed yesterday.
To defend the policies undertaken by his Government, the president referred to the pandemic crisis, where, thanks to the social shield, the imbalances that arose after the previous great crisis, in 2008, were avoided. There is another way (social democratic), Sánchez insisted, to lift the economy. As expected, the president put the accent on the successes, Although attributing the current problem of inflation only to external factors (the war in Ukraine) is to ignore the fact that, before the war broke out, Spain already registered a higher CPI rise to the countries of its European environment.
Sánchez reaffirmed his turn to the left, sticking out chest before the complaints of the bank and the energy companies for the new tax (“we are going in the right direction”), and with allusions to the “working middle class” and the “privileged minority” of the country. He also reaffirmed one of the main commitments of the legislature, the energy transition. The issue of energy, which was already an urgent matter due to the climate emergency, with the consequences of the war in Ukraine, has become unavoidable for governments, especially the European Union. So the announcements made yesterday by Sánchez regarding energy go in the right direction, in the sense that inaction is not admissible. In September, Spain will propose to the EU reform the functioning of the electricity market to decouple the price of gas from the wholesale market and establish a maximum cap on the price of CO2 emissions. Proposals with an uncertain path, because they will require the consensus of the member states. More immediate will be the energy saving plan that will be approved next Monday in the last Council of Ministers before the holidays. The president did not specify the measures that will be known in three days –in a studied control of the times in communication policy– but he did give some clues (appearing without a tie, alluding to the low temperatures of the shopping centers). Waiting to know the detail, we must not forget that Spain is obliged to jointly reduce its consumption of gas by 7% under the EU agreement in the face of the threat from Russia.
The confidence exhibited by Sánchez contrasts with the predictions that, after an August boosted by tourism, a difficult autumn will come. Perhaps more thinking about the next general elections than about the institutional tone that the occasion required, the constant puyas of the President of the Government to the opposition of the PP did not fit with the need for political calm to face the uncertainties that await the return of summer.