Carlos San Juan is the 78-year-old citizen who, wearing a t-shirt that says “I’m older not an idiot” and some boxes with 600,000 signatures He has managed to bring to the forefront of the media and the political class the discrimination that, like him, older people suffer when they want to carry out bank management. What happens in branches without spotlights, recorders or cameras, those scenes of angry and indignant elderly people because they simply do not understand anything about online banking, has jumped to the public opinion showcase in just a few days.
After the meeting with @carlos_bodyCarlos San Juan has had a brief meeting with VP @NadiaCalvino in which he pointed out:
➡️”We have to guarantee the #FinancialInclusion of the elderly and personalized treatment. At the end of the month we hope to have a plan of effective measures” pic.twitter.com/hhmxvJ94Ul
— Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation (@_minecogob) February 8, 2022
Adherence to the cause of San Juan has happened swiftly and quickly, and successfully. The First Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, who among her functions has that of the relationship with financial entities, made a wonderful maneuver this Tuesday. San Juan was surrounded by journalists when she arrived at the Ministry and Calviño, who had come from Moncloa, came over to greet him, talk to him for a while and thank him for the fight. Then, the secretary general of the treasury received this gentleman of almost 80 years, coming from Valencia.
Attentive to the situation, aware of the reality, the senator of the PP Paloma Sanz prepared to register a couple of amendments to the bill for the protection of vulnerable consumers directly related to the cause of Carlos San Juan. He points out, in statements to El Periódico de España, a newspaper belonging to the same group, Prenss Ibérica, that this newspaper, which has done so out of knowledge and experience, since its province, Segovia, suffers from the problem, which is that of all of Castilla y León. In the community where its citizens will vote in four days, one of its burdens is the exodus of the population and another, aging. The result: the banks leave and the citizens who remain, of advanced age, they don’t know what to do to get money.
DIRECT ?| Carlos San Juan presents the 600,000 signatures he has collected during the “I’m older, not an idiot” campaign at the Ministry of Economy. The initiative calls for a more humane treatment of the elderly by banks https://t.co/rscwNdtsL3 pic.twitter.com/nZqGiNw65o
— RTVE News (@rtvenoticias) February 8, 2022
The Senate speaks
The moment is more than opportune. The aforementioned law, drawn up by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs a year ago, It will be debated in the corresponding Senate Commission this Thursday. The paper created for this purpose will analyze what changes to implement as long as they arouse consensus.
One of the PP amendments advocates the incorporation of a new final provision entitled: “Personalized attention to vulnerable consumers in banking financial services.” It consists of an article with the following wording: “The banking financial service will be considered a ‘basic and universal service'”. For this reason, he adds, the entities “will guarantee face-to-face attention” to “vulnerable consumers who demand it, without discrimination motivated by ‘digital divide‘”. In case there is any doubt about what the popular, led in the Senate by Javier Maroto, want, the explanation that accompanies the amendment emphasizes two essential issues: that any citizen understands what he has to do in the bank and that the Government facilitate it.
what better than include the request in a law. That these issues appear in the legislation is not trivial. They give the claim a legal coating that, in case of non-compliance, will help the injured party. East armor it enhances the demand, because, as usually happens in Parliament, if it goes into non-law propositions or motions, it ends up deflating. An amendment to a law is something else and the PP wants to take advantage of it.
morning @PPSenate It will demand that the personalized attention of the banks to the elderly in the rural world be guaranteed by law. If the amendment of @Paloma_ppsg, @AntonioRomanJ Y @WelcomeFromArriba goes ahead will become a basic and universal service. Thanks to all three
– Javier Maroto (@JavierMaroto) February 9, 2022
It is not his only proposal in this sense because, as Sanz recalls, the popular group will defend this Thursday, in addition, the subscription of a series of agreements between Correos and banks to transfer essential financial services to rural municipalities where these, if they ever existed, have been wiped out by depopulation. Localities with less than 5,000 inhabitants are at risk of social exclusion, alleges the PP, which urges the Government to mobilize State resources for this purpose, and as if that were not enough, to leave this well tied in a new final provision more.
Carles Mulet enters the scene
The senator who for a few hours seemed to be able to bring Bárbara Rey to the Chamber to ask him about his links with the emeritus (rather because of his “silence” on the matter) is called to play a leading role in the Commission this Thursday . Carles Mulet is here the spokesman for the group of the Confederal Left, which includes his party, Compromìs.
Always attentive to what the media airs, Mulet has included an amendment similar to that of the PP. He intends to change article 3.2 of the consumer law to emphasize the “age” component in the definition of vulnerable consumer, one of the main achievements of the standard as it came out of the Council of Ministers.
Si tot ix bé, demà ho aconseguirem ✊?Several groups in the Senate propose by law that the Government regulate the braille labeling of consumer products | https://t.co/uJYcNhui0K
– Carles Mulet Garcia (@carlesmulet) February 9, 2022
In other words, what Mulet wants is for older people to also fit into that range of citizens in “a special situation of subordination, defenselessness or lack of protection”, precisely because of their age. Mulet’s justification could not be more illustrative: “respond to the demands of the elderlywho feel mistreated by some companies, such as financial institutions, with whom they have complicated relationships due to the vital moment in which they find themselves”.
Both the PP and Mulet’s amendments are already at the table of the socialist group, which is the one that holds the key to its inclusion or exclusion in the legislative project. Sources of the popular group have recognized that the predisposition of the socialists is evident, although they doubt the times. With elections in sight in Castilla y León, it is likely, these sources point out, that they will avoid any agreement with the initials of Pablo Casado.
At @gpssenado We work to enrich the standard that will protect vulnerable consumers.
??We propose to include braille in the labeling, sensitive to the proposal of the @cermi_state with whom we had the opportunity to speak last week. #We comply pic.twitter.com/aaD7CbzHVx
– Eva Granados Galiano / ❤️ (@Eva_Granados) February 8, 2022
Consulted by the start of talks on the matter, PSOE sources point out that the parliamentary group of the Senate is for the work of reaching an agreement, although they specify that “face to the plenary”. This nuance can determine the outcome of the negotiation. As is mandatory, what the Health and Consumer Affairs Commission approves this Thursday will travel to the next plenary session, which is expected to take place next week. If that is when the changes take hold, in the midst of the February 13 elections in Castilla y León, the law will return to Congress so that the modifications are ratified or discarded.
Likewise, the socialist sources recall that the First Vice Presidency is working on a plan that concerns banking entities and encourages the improvement of their benefits with the elderly. Given that this plan will be the result of dialogue between the administration and entities, the PSOE prefers to opt for prudence. His caution does not mean that he intends to knock down the proposals for face-to-face attention, but it does reveal that time management, here, as almost always in politics, is crucial.
The journey of the law
If the Senate changes the project and, consequently, it returns to Congress, the journey of the law for the protection of vulnerable consumers will take another step in a long journey. It was born as a decree law in January 2021 and Congress, after validating it, turned it into a bill, for which it was immersed in a processing process that, seen now, has neither been simple nor has it avoided surprises.
He spent nine months in that limbo of the extensions of the term of amendments until last October, already in the Commission of Health and Consumption of the Congress, he got unstuck. Within a month the groups completed the negotiations, in a hurry. The shock came from the hand of the socialist sector because it introduced two bizarre amendments: one on the regulation of temporary work for longshoremen and another on the cadastral regime of public railway companies. Both were incorporated into the text of the project, which is what the Senate has received, but not without the Commission’s lawyer stating that they were proposals that clearly exceeded the contour of the norm and that PP and Vox shouted to heaven for it.
The law, therefore, is one more victim of this fever for mixing such diverse issues in a norm, of which the opposition, both left and right, is beginning to tire.
But he is also a victim of how the speed of the present conditions the debates. When Minister Alberto Garzón defended the decree before the plenary session of Congress, just over a year ago, the right-wing parties rejected the proposal because, according to their protests, gave wings to the squatting of houses.
A year later, the debate resides in the need to provide a better service to the elderly in banks.
A 78-year-old citizen named Carlos San Juan has succeeded.