Yolanda Díaz defends with María Jesús Montero the Government's response to the crisis and "walking together" despite the difference

Yolanda Díaz and María Jesús Montero, this Wednesday in Seville.Joaquin Corchero (Europa Press)

Harmony between both, common objectives, but differences in times and in the formulas to address them.

Under the title

, the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, and the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, participated this Wednesday in an event in Seville organized by the group Economists Against the Crisis to boast of the response given by the Government to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

The meeting takes place with a discrepancy on the table, the tax on electricity companies that United We Can want to approve as soon as possible, and in the middle of the Andalusian campaign, just one day after Díaz, at a rally in support of his candidate, Inmaculada Nieto , asked the undecided electorate of the PSOE to vote in one of the historical strongholds of the Socialists, Dos Hermanas.

“Yolanda and I have an excellent relationship.

We had it before the coalition government and we have it now.

So as much as there are those who insist that this government has cracks and is weakening, no problem”, Montero warned as soon as he took the floor.

"We have a common route and, as in all families, there are nuances but we believe in what this Government is doing and in the left-wing politics that we are practicing", the Treasury Minister has settled.

“Not only do we get along, but we love each other.

Not bad, in politics one can make friends.

You do not have to be in permanent confrontation ”, Díaz has replied, who on July 8 launches Sumar, his project to form a political platform that expands the electoral base of United We Can.

A process that occurs in a context of understanding of the political forces of the left such as that of France, where the candidacy that includes the party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the Socialists was tied with the formation of President Emmanuel Macron last Sunday in the first round of the legislature.

In Spain, the uncertainty about the future of the space in which Díaz works is absolute.

The vice president has advocated in her speech that the measures put in place during the crisis serve to cause a change not only "conjunctural", but also "structural" in a new "project for a feminist, green country with work at the center ”.

"Let's not make this an incomplete recovery, let's transform it into an opportunity for our country in which from different positions, and this is the new political time, we can walk together," she said, alluding to Montero.

“And here we are two people who will surely not think the same about many things, but we do show that we walk together.

That we have proposals, that we look ahead to the future, especially because we have a backpack that already tells us that we have done better ”, she has defended in opposition to the management of the PP.

Before the start of the act, the two ministers already revealed their discrepancies when it comes to addressing a new tax rate for large electricity companies.

While United We Can press to include it in the decree of anti-crisis measures, which has to be extended at the end of the month, the head of the Treasury rules out including the measure there.

Montero insisted, however, on the "harmony" between the two government parties on the intention that the electricity and oil companies that are obtaining benefits from the increase in energy prices make a "greater contribution" to the public coffers.

“On the objective there is no discrepancy between the two political formations.

What needs to be found is the most appropriate formula and also the vehicle that makes it possible to start it up.

The decree laws cannot implement measures with new fiscal figures”, he explained.

The PSOE does not see it possible to apply this tax before the beginning of next year, at the earliest, with the entry into force of the next Budgets.

The new accounts, if approved, could include a tax change.

“People are having a hard time.

Let's stop methodological debates and act", the second vice president replied minutes later.

“Always, when we use procedural methodologies, we are hiding substantive debates.

Everything is possible when there is political will”, Díaz continued, supporting her claim in reports from the OECD and the European Commission.

The person in charge of Labor recalled that the three large electricity companies saw their profits increase by 47% in the last financial year.

“The largest transfer of income from citizens to electricity companies is taking place.

Our position is clear.

We need to act now.

Not in the Budgets, but right now, with a tax that taxes these incomes”, concluded Díaz.