The CS candidate for Madrid City Council, Begoña Villacís (third from the left), and the spokesperson in the Party Congress (third from the right), at the ceremony this Thursday in Madrid. Gustavo Valiente (Europa Press)
CS has announced this Thursday one of its initiatives focused on "promoting the birth rate."
The party proposes to grant a universal aid of 1,000 euros for those families that have a second child and a monthly payment of another 1,500 euros until the minor reaches 12 years of age.
The measure has been advanced by the spokesperson in Congress, Inés Arrimadas, and the Ciudadanos candidate for Madrid City Council, Begoña Villacís, during an act at the national headquarters of the formation.
This liquid payment is added to a series of tax benefits included in the package shelled out today and which, according to party calculations, would mean a saving of 25,000 euros with the first child and 40,000 with the second (including universal aid).
“We are going to help you have the second child because this cannot be fixed with an awareness campaign.
Ciudadanos has put the focus in these municipal and regional elections on May 28 on the defense of "squeezed families", considering with this concept those who, in their opinion, have an average income but experience "difficulties" on a daily basis. Today, they are "suffocated" by taxes, "maintain the system" and receive "no help" from the public.
And on this idea they are guiding their proposals for the appointment at the polls on 28-M, in which they only aspire to stay and not disappear, according to the majority of surveys.
“From a certain income you no longer have the right to anything, this package of a second child means expanding the network to those who are not bad, but do not arrive at the end of the month in peace.
This is not like Zapatero's aid, that I take the check and distribute it is the set of all the measures”, added Arrimadas.
Regarding the criticisms made by CS in the past against universal aid, management sources specify: “They are not little payments.
Our proposal is not based on giving a sum of money as soon as you have a child, but on a whole series of policies, bonuses and aid related to the upbringing, care and education of children.
We have criticized a lot that there is a network of aid that does not benefit the middle classes, because they exceed the income and they no longer get anything.
Those who give a lot and receive nothing.
This is precisely going towards that niche”.
In Ciudadanos they also bet on the flexible working day of four days, free nursery school, 10 points less of IRPF from the second child and all single parents and the subsidy of assisted pregnancy techniques, such as egg freezing.
From the party they have also returned to insist on one of their symbols, the legalization of surrogates.
“It's just another way to have children.
We are the only party that defends altruistic surrogacy", defended the deputy Guillermo Díaz, also present at the event.
The party, which has historically championed the cause, took out of the drawer the proposed law already presented in 2017 and in 2019, but which did not even pass the process of taking it into consideration by the opposition of PSOE, PP and Podemos, and registered it again last March in line with the controversy surrounding Ana Obregón.