The Government comes out in a spout against Feijóo for saying that the economy is "stagnant" when it grows at 3.8%

Alberto Núñez Feijóo has returned to the economic discourse that he abandoned in the campaign for the elections of May 28, focused in the end almost entirely on the lists of Bildu and ETA. The leader of the PP has taken up the message about the economy and does so to draw a very pessimistic portrait of the situation, which he describes as "stagnation" and even "decline". This, despite the fact that GDP grows at 3.8% year-on-year, 0.5% in the first quarter and forecasts for the whole year exceed 2%, compared to 0% in Germany, 0.8% in France or 1.2% in Italy. The Government of Pedro Sánchez has come out in droves to answer the popular leader with a battery of positive data, from inflation, which for several months has been the lowest among the economies of the euro -2.9% compared to 6% in France, 6.3% in Germany and 8.1% in Italy-; the arrival of international tourists to Spain – already above pre-pandemic levels – or the record of affiliation to Social Security, which is close to 21 million people in employment.

Feijóo explained his vision on the situation of the economy this Thursday at the South Summit 2023 entrepreneurs' forum, held in Madrid, where he complained about the moment of "economic stagnation" that Spain is experiencing. "Even the most pessimistic consider that we are in a moment of economic decline," he stressed. "Why?", the leader of the PP has been rhetorically asked, before developing it: "Because we have not yet recovered the GDP of the year 2019. Because of every four unemployed Europeans, one is Spanish. Because we have the highest female unemployment and the highest youth unemployment. Because we have lost purchasing power, because disposable family income has fallen, because we are not able to balance income and expenditure and we have a 4.8% deficit. Portugal has a 0.4% deficit and we [exceed it by] more than 10 times." And, finally, Feijóo has described, because Spain has "a debt of 1.5 trillion long euros, and issues eight million euros of debt every hour in the last five years".

Feijóo has once again demonstrated today that he is an undocumented catastrophist. He has lied to international investors by claiming that the Spanish economy is "in decline" and "stagnant". The only thing that is in decline and stagnant is its credibility. pic.twitter.com/N3Dyqo5jhv

— María Jesús Montero (@mjmonteroc) June 8, 2023

The Government and the PSOE are clearly satisfied that Feijóo returns to the economic debate, where the Socialists believe they have the chance to win because the figures are positive. And the PP, in addition, has the antecedent of the previous crisis, where Mariano Rajoy made strong cuts. Nor does the right-wing party have a visible economic head to send to the debates against Nadia Calviño, the first vice president. The Executive has come out in a spout against Feijóo. María Jesús Montero, Minister of Finance and number two of the PSOE, was especially indignant because the leader of the PP said it in a forum where there are international investors. "It is a lie that the Spanish economy is in decline or stagnant, as Mr. Feijóo has said, trying to cause damage in our country, since he has done so in a forum where there are companies that are deciding whether to invest or not, and, therefore, generate employment in Spain, "he said. Montero recalled that, according to Eurostat, "Spain grew during the first quarter three times that of the countries of the European Union and that it is creating employment at twice the speed of the countries of our environment". And he concluded: "Statements of that kind incapacitate to govern someone who through lies tries to scare away investors."

The leader of the PP insists for months on his concern about the volume of Spanish debt, which he advocates reducing, but does not explain how he would undertake that debt cut and if he would do it based on adjustments. In parallel to this malaise, Feijóo proposes tax cuts, such as the abolition of wealth tax throughout Spain, as announced a few days ago, or a reduction in personal income tax to medium and low incomes, although these fit badly with the reduction of debt. Vice President Calviño already responded on Tuesday to these criticisms of Feijóo for the high volume of debt. He explained that all European countries have gone into debt during the pandemic because citizens and companies had to be saved, and gave the example of ERTEs, but now Spain is already reducing the volume and has fallen by 5%. In addition, Calviño recalled that the largest recent increase in debt, 35,000 million euros, occurred because it was necessary to account for the losses of Sareb, the bad bank created under the PP government, which is the one that has really meant a huge increase in public debt.

This Thursday, Feijóo has proposed as a recipe to overcome a "very complicated" situation of the economy, "grow". "But grow in a healthy way," he defended. "That the economy does not grow as a result of an exorbitant increase in public spending financed by debt, because we are going to pay the interest. And second, that employment does not grow basically with the growth of public employment. If they take the EPA they will see an increase of more than 400,000 public jobs. It is clear that we need public employment, especially in health and social services, but beware of this."

It is not the first time that the leader of the PP sees the glass half empty despite the positive indicators of the Spanish economy. In July of last year, he stated emphatically: "We are heading for a very deep economic crisis." Despite the high inflation and the consequent loss of purchasing power, as well as the structural unemployment that drags Spain, GDP has not stopped growing since then.

The Minister of Social Security, José Luis Escrivá, who was head of the Airef and is an expert in data, has quickly answered Feijóo with a series of data and graphs to show that precisely in June, when these words of the leader of the opposition arrive, Spain is having many positive data. "The performance of the Spanish economy in this complex context is extraordinary, particularly when compared to that of large neighboring countries," he said. The Executive is, therefore, wishing that the debate of the campaign turns towards the economy, and that is why it has offered the PP all the economic debates it wants, with Calviño as a reference, but it is not clear yet if the popular will accept any. At the moment, Feijóo has only spoken of a face to face with Pedro Sánchez.

Feijóo, speech on gender equality after his announcement to abolish the Ministry of Equality

Just 48 hours after having pointed out that, if he governs, he will suppress the Ministry of Equality, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has tried to stop the waterway that can be opened in the female vote with a speech on equality between men and women. This Thursday, the leader of the PP has announced his commitment to "try" free education from zero to three years throughout the country, a measure that would be "co-financed" between the State and the autonomous communities, which are the ones that have transferred the competences in Education. "We have to recognize that there is still a lot of work to be done," Feijóo reflected in reference to gender equality. The popular leader has also recognized as a reality the wage gap between men and women. "The wage gap is nothing more than the time more than motherhood. Men and women begin to ascend fairly evenly until the first child arrives. It cannot be that women have to choose between their career and being mothers. We are going to work so that motherhood stops being the glass ceiling."

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