SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov. 23 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The groups that support the Government of the Canary Islands (CC, PP, ASG and AHI) have asserted their majority in the regional Parliament to overthrow the two amendments to the entirety presented by the Socialist Party and Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista to the draft Law of General Budgets of the Autonomous Community for 2024, which continues with its parliamentary process.
The Minister of the Treasury, Matilde Asián, in charge of defending the accounts in her first reading debate, highlighted that these budgets have been made “with seriousness and rigor”, with a “very high” level of uncertainty and “in a short period of time”, and highlighted that they reflect not only the Government’s commitment to its priorities, objectives and policies, but also to the citizens.
In this scenario, Matilde Asián emphasized that the Canarian Executive has prepared “prudent” and “cautiously” budgets, taking into account real spending and giving “absolute priority” to social spending, since the items allocated to Health, Education and Social Welfare add up to an increase of 680 million euros, two thirds of the total increase in the budget.
Asián has justified, in turn, the refusal to lower the general IGIC rate from 7% to 5% – an electoral promise of CC and PP – in that they have preferred to choose to safeguard public services, to the point that it has advanced that The IGIC cannot be lowered if the services are not fully guaranteed.
“A MASSIVE ELECTORAL FRAUD.”
The spokesperson for NC-BC, Luis Campos, stressed that these budgets are a “massive electoral fraud” and are the confirmation that the Canary Coalition and the Popular Party “deceived the citizens in the electoral campaign” because they have failed to comply with “the mother of all the electoral promises” by not reducing the IGIC from 7% to 5%, as they promised.
Luis Campos also considered that they are “reckless, reckless and irresponsible” budgets because they are growing “more than ever” (11% more than in 2023) in a scenario of “maximum uncertainty” and they are “trick” budgets because ” “they falsify” the spending rule recommended by AIReF, which foresees that it will increase by 6% and not 3% as estimated by the Government of the Canary Islands.
In parallel, Campos disfigured the “bad distribution” of spending by applying cuts to sectors such as the primary sector, by 24 million euros, despite being the “most hit” by inflation. They take 10 million euros from Culture, 9 million from the Canarian Employment Service (SCE) and they deduct transfers in matters of Equality and to fight against gender violence, which “until now was only done in territories governed by the PP and Vox “, criticized Luis Campos, adding that the cut in cooperation policies “is not justifiable either.”
The parliamentary spokesperson also stated that these accounts endorse “the authentic anthology of nonsense” because they will not be able to sustain structural spending due to the lower arrival of income; They are the assumptions “of discontent” by leaving everyone “dislocated”; and they dare to “break” the laws approved by Parliament, from Education, to Social Services and the Public Culture System.
“A SOCIETY THAT DEVALUATES.”
For his part, the spokesperson for the Socialist Parliamentary Group, Sebastián Franquis, stated that these budgets show that the Canarian Coalition and the Popular Party “want a society that devalues the contribution to the added value of our economy, by cutting resources from improving the human capital, and with social services with lower social spending”; budgets that demonstrate the “passivity” of the Canarian Government in the face of poverty and inequality, which suffer from social “insensitivity” and “unfair” taxation.
Sebastián Franquis criticized that these accounts consider the Canaries as “abstract concepts” and do not look at those groups that have more difficulties, to whom “no answer is given.” “They are, therefore, not the budgets that the Canary Islands need and they respond to these people with absolute indifference to their concerns and demands.”
The socialist deputy stressed that these budgets “are neither prudent nor social and are born from a deception and a trap.” “They are the presuppositions of deception to disappointment because [CC y PP] “They promised significant reductions in the IGIC and what they have done is raised taxes, since financial income increased by 1,121 million euros, so they did not do it not because they could not, but because they did not want to,” he remarked.
Franquis stated that these accounts are, in turn, a “trap” that “indecently” overestimates the degree of execution of non-financial spending for 2023, placing it above 96.5% and putting financial sustainability “at risk.” of the autonomous community for subsequent financial years.
He also said that they are economically “ineffective” and socially “unfair” budgets, that they suffer from “significant deficiencies” in the income policy and that they establish an order of priorities in their spending policy that “will not only make it difficult to coverage of the basic needs of the entire population, but they are going to reiterate economic policies that have already proven ineffective in previous times.
In summary, he stated that they are budgets that are going to make families “pay more for everything and receive less of everything”, that are going to create less employment, that are going to impoverish the middle and working classes and that “shadow” the “already difficult” future of young people.
“The Canarians have discovered in 130 days that CC and the PP did not tell a single truth during the electoral campaign. They said that the crisis was Sánchez’s fault and that they were going to solve it, and after 130 days things are worse. The Life is more expensive, there are no measures to help families in the face of the huge increase in food prices and the increase in their mortgages, they eliminate taxes on the rich and we have the most expensive and largest Government in the history of the Canary Islands, which grows 30% compared to 2023,” he added.
“NO TASTE”
In her different turns of reply, the Minister of the Treasury thanked NC-BC for having recognized the difficulties that have surrounded the preparation of the budgets due to institutional and economic uncertainty, and said she understood that the opposition does not want to share the “disappointments.” “which involves establishing priorities and distributing expenses for everyone.
Regarding the intervention of the socialist spokesperson, he said that the poverty that now exists in the Canary Islands “has not been created in these last four months” and, although he recognized that when one enters politics “we all want to do things well and do good things for the citizens”, the methods of the current Government are “more effective” than those of the Flower Pact.
