The PSOE launches a 'green' microcredit campaign

José Luis Ábalos, Secretary of Organization of the PSOE and Minister of Transport.EVA ERCOLANESE / EFE

The PSOE launches this Saturday a green microcredit campaign with 3% annual interest to finance the transformation of the party and make it more sustainable and digital.

The range for raising funds will be between 500 and 10,000 euros.

The amortization of the loans to interested individuals would be one third every twelve months for three years, returning both the contribution and the interest, sources from the federal direction advance to EL PAÍS.

"The return of the microcredits will be guaranteed by contract", they affirm.

The Socialists trust in this way to finance a fund of four million euros with which they intend to renovate their facilities, reducing their environmental impact and putting into practice the environmental message of their electoral program.

The bank debt of the PSOE as of December 31, 2019 was 46.2 million, with maturities until 2043.

The objective of the Green Light plan, which the federal leadership of the PSOE approved on May 11, is to reduce the carbon footprint - greenhouse gas emissions - until reaching the zero emissions objective.

The initial goal is to achieve a reduction between 60-90% in 2023 of the carbon footprint of the headquarters in Madrid's Calle de Ferraz and of the autonomous federations.

But the PSOE has more than 1,200 houses in the town, with an average built area of ​​214 square meters.

That is why the plan also includes actions such as changing the consumption of its electricity to 100% renewable sources - currently only 3.3% of the headquarters have clean energy -, creating integrated green spaces, introducing 5G - 38.6% of their houses in the village have access to high-speed internet-, eliminate paper consumption or digitize the archive of historical memory of the labor movement.

"The Green Light plan will help us transform the party and have greater credibility and strength in our ecological message," say sources from the executive.

The defense of the environment is one of the great banners of young people, a sector of the population in which the PSOE is not deeply rooted.

It will be the first time that a political party resorts to microcredits outside the electoral period and the third time that the Socialists resort to this fundraising model.

Podemos was the precursor financing their campaigns, but at 0%.

PP, Ciudadanos and Vox have not resorted to microcredits.

In the case of the Socialists, the total net movement of electoral microcredits in 2019 was 3,235 operations for an amount greater than seven million euros.

The PSOE was launched in April last year with a campaign aimed at its cadres and supporters with this alternative financing formula to counteract the problems it was encountering to finance the general campaign that month (a month later it was the European, regional and municipal) due to the bankruptcy of Banco Popular.

The commitment was to repay the loan with 2% annual interest once the State grant was paid.

2,454,200 euros were collected in this way.

The general budget, the first that the PSOE had won since 2008, was nine million.

The bankruptcy of Popular in 2017, financier of the great national formations - his office on Cedaceros street in Madrid, next to Congress, had a team of executives specialized in dialogue with party representatives, who passed by there to ask for financing-, made it difficult for the PP and PSOE to access credit.

Even so, to cover the costs of the April and May elections, they each asked the banks for 30 million in advance.

Then nobody imagined it and there would be a repetition of the general elections in November: it would be the most intense electoral period since the restoration of democracy with five elections in seven months.

"Due to the restructuring of the Spanish banking system and in particular to the disappearance of the bank that had specialized in electoral financing, in these electoral processes we are encountering many difficulties to obtain the necessary electoral financing", included an internal document of the PSOE that month of April.

"The economic contribution of the entire structure of the party, its positions and its membership is fundamental," they urged to participate.

The federal committee of the PSOE, the highest body between congresses, approved a series of measures to "achieve maximum diversification" and "complement" some sources of funding with others.

Half a year later, microcredits had become one of the main financing channels for Ferraz. In less than two weeks, 4,722,143 euros were raised - twice as much as in April - to cover the seven million budget for the 10-N campaign. On this occasion the Socialists offered an annual interest of 2.5%, half a point more than in April. What now encourages the PSOE to launch a third microcredit campaign is that in the general past 2.5 million (54%) were loans from people outside the party for the 2.2 million (46%) who were militants. "If that happened in an electoral campaign, we understand that the mobilization will be greater when dealing with the financing of an environmental project," they hope in Ferraz. Sources from the socialist leadership assure that the party will have returned 100% of these microcredits together with the interest generated before November 5 - those interested could reinvest them in the new plan - and all the electoral debt on the 15th.