After the PP’s ‘no’ to the PSOE-UP initiative, ‘Génova’ strives to explain the difference between what Europe and the Government propose
The PP led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo welcomes the new European rate on the benefits of electricity companies, a measure that places the temporary tax on energy companies and banks of the Government of Pedro Sánchez at the opposite end of the spectrum, according to ‘popular’ sources, that also warn that the Executive’s tax may be “unconstitutional” and “contrary to community law.”
One day after the ‘no’ of the Popular Group in Congress to the new taxes on energy and banking raised by PSOE and United We Can, from the PP they have endeavored to explain the differences between the tax promoted by the Government and the rate that it proposes Europe, especially when this Wednesday the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, has estimated income at 140,000 million to limit the extraordinary profits of electricity companies.
“One thing is the rate that Europe raises to lower the bill for consumers and a very different thing is Sánchez’s tax to increase its collection,” stressed the general secretary of the PP and spokesperson for the Popular Group in Congress, Cuca Gamarra, who has insisted that they are “different” things.
For this reason, he has underlined “everything that involves lowering taxes and lowering bills, the PP says yes from the outset; but everything that involves raising taxes to raise more, is no at the outset”, given that the Government has obtained more than 22,000 extra million euros in its collection in the first seven months of the year. In his opinion, Spain does not have a collection problem, but the Spanish have “a problem paying their bills.”
In addition, Gamarra explained that the rate that Europe raises would have a “finalist” character and, therefore, “would have a direct focus” on the invoices, not on “the cash of the Government of Spain”. That difference, he continued, is one of the reasons why his party had requested the withdrawal of the PSOE and United We Can bill, to wait for Europe’s pronouncement and “so that the Government does not have to rectify itself again in relation to what Europe can establish”.
In addition, the ‘popular’ brand the initiative of the government coalition as “botched”. In fact, the deputy of the Popular Group, Mario Garcés, came to define her as a “legal monstrosity” in his intervention on the platform of Congress. “Withdrawal is what a responsible government would have done. There is a European debate and we have to see what comes out of Brussels,” party sources insist.
They also criticize that the Government has created this tax figure through a proposal of Law of the PSOE and Podemos and not as a bill in order to avoid the mandatory reports of the Ministry of Finance and the supervisory bodies. “In this way I would have some guarantees and there would be no objections from the legal point of view,” add the same sources.
In the PP they are avoiding for now to pronounce on whether they would take Sánchez’s temporary tax on banking and energy to the TC because, as they underline, there has only been a first process in Parliament and it remains to be seen how it ends. That yes, believe that the proposal of PSOE and UP “has to change completely”, according to the same sources. In addition, they warn that the double taxation that the Government intends is “unconstitutional” and it may be that in the end the money will have to be returned.
SÁNCHEZ’S “POPULIST SPEECH”
In ‘Genoa’ they criticize Moncloa for weeks linking the PP with the “powerful”. This Wednesday Pedro Sánchez has resorted again to that argument in the control session of Congress by accusing the PP of defending the “program of the large energy companies” for voting ‘no’ to temporary taxes on electricity companies and financial entities.
“He has made a populist speech”, point out PP sources, who make him ugly that he presumes to be the Government of the social majority when, in his opinion, “he cannot step on the street” and focuses each public appearance on “opposing the opposition”.
In Feijóo’s team they consider that the chief executive is in “a reckoning with the powerful” and not focused on lowering the bills for families. “It is a matter of ideology. There is no collection problem,” emphasize the sources consulted.
WHAT THE PP SAYS IN ITS ENERGY PACT
In the energy plan that Feijóo sent to Sánchez last Monday, there is a specific section on the “tax on extraordinary profits from electricity companies.” There, the PP points out that the PSOE and UP proposal says that it will tax extraordinary profits to electricity companies but “what it would really tax is the turnover, not extraordinary profits, and not of all electricity companies, but of some.”
For this reason, and in line with what the EU is studying, he proposes that “the extraordinary income received by the Treasury must be shared with consumers to lower prices” and adds that “Germany’s plan, announced by Olaf Scholz on 4 September foresees this formula”.
In addition, he recalls that like the United Kingdom, they have established an exemption in this tax on extraordinary profits, “in a very high percentage, when their reinvestment in energy improvements is planned.”
The PP also points out that the EU has warned that the approval of a tax that does not submit to its proposals for the whole could lead to its subsequent abolition. To prevent Spain from “suffering the consequences of a poor design of the tax”, Feijóo’s party proposed the withdrawal of the PSOE and United We Can proposal “until a common position has been established that allows a definitive decision”.
