The purple ones will put on the table demands that the PSOE already rejected last year but that have their last chance to become real in the public accounts of 2023
The negotiation of the latest General State Budgets (PGE) of the legislature -if they are approved- has started. PSOE and United We Can have already sat down at the table, in a first meeting, to begin to test the terrain of what has been one of the agreements that generates the most tensions within the coalition Executive. The purple ones already have on the table your demands and aware that this may be the last opportunity to move them forward, the talks promise to be complex. those of Yolanda Diaz demand a universal baby check, more investment in Dependency or comply with the coalition agreement on tax matters.
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Treasury sources indicate that it is still early to know what demands of United We Can will be included in the General State Budget project for 2023. “It is impossible for us to have concreteness nowwhen there are still two months to go before the bill is ready”, underline Montero’s team. negotiations will be discreet and it may end up closing among the first swords and at the time limit set by the president, as happened last year.
In the absence of seeing which way the balance is tilted, the purple ones assure that the Budgets will be the “cotton test” to check if Pedro Sanchez he is willing to lean on the progressive bloc for the rest of the legislature and ratify his turn to the left. These are the demands of United We Can for the next Budgets:
100 euro baby check
One of the main battles that United We Can waged in the negotiation of the General State Budgets to 2022 It was the introduction of a universal baby check. The proposal was rejected by the socialist wing of the Government, but the purples do not resist. Belarra has been defending for several weeks the need to include a game of €400 million in the Public Accounts to give a baby check of 100 euros per month to all women. Currently, working women receive it, either through a tax deduction or a check.
6-month maternity leave
The coalition agreement signed by PSOE and United We Can includes the commitment to raise maternity and paternity leave to the 4 months. The Executive fulfilled this promise and since on January 1, 2021 both parents enjoy 16 weeks off. However, Belarra wants to extend this period to the 6 months and include it in the law on family diversity and support for families in which the Ministry of Social Rights works. The PSOE also denied him the financing for this measure in the last negotiations.
Dependency Financing
One of the largest requests that the purples will put on the table is €800 million for dependency. former vice president Paul Iglesias managed to increase spending items in the first year and a half of the coalition. However, Belarra considers that another 800 million euros are necessary. 600 would go to Dependency and another 200 million to expand the Co-Responsible Planyes
If there is a claim shared by the entire progressive bloc, it is the reduction of VAT on feminine hygiene products at 4%. A measure that is even part of the coalition agreement. The purples have been trying for two years to fulfill this point of agreement, but the socialists, for the moment, have refused. In the negotiation of the past Budgets, the PSOE knocked down the ERC and EH Bildu amendments aimed at lowering the tax to the super-reduced rate.
Raise taxation for high incomes
United We Can wants to strictly enforce the coalition agreement. Especially in tax matters. The Executive has raised the personal income tax in recent years two points to the income from work over 300,000 euros. However, the purples intend to make it even tougher and raise another two points to those who exceed this same amount and two points to those who win. more than 130,000 euros. The pact also includes raising four points the personal income tax on capital income that exceeds the €140,000. In the Budgets for 2021, it was increased three points, but for those that exceed 200,000 euros.
Toughen the corporate tax
Another of the focuses on which the negotiating energies of United We Can will focus is on the tightening of the Corporation Tax. The second vice-president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, asserted a few weeks ago that “does not speak well” of Spain or the “poor tax justice that exists” the current configuration of this tax. The purple ones maintain that the collection has been reduced by 40% compared to 2007, the year before the economic crisis broke out in 2008, something that translates into 20,000 million euros a year that stop entering the state coffers.
One of the most tense battles will be caused by the increase in military spending in the Budgets, as Sánchez promised during the NATO summit in Madrid. The purple ones have been against in several occasions, although now are moderating their stance. Belarra has assured on several occasions that this increase in the defense budget should not lead, in any case, to a decrease in social spending.