MADRID, 29 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has charged against the leaders of financial entities and energy companies for their criticism of the new taxes proposed by the Government to deal with the consequences of the impact of the war in Ukraine and the escalation of inflation.
“I have listened to Mrs. Botín, Mr. Galán… if they protest, it is that we are going in the right direction,” Sánchez defended from the Moncloa Complex during the presentation this Friday of the accountability report of the Government of Spain, which bears the title of ‘Fulfilling’.
In addition, Sánchez has pointed out that these businessmen are “the same ones” who protested and said that by raising the Minimum Interprofessional Wage (SMI) and with the labor reform “Spain was going to fall and many workers would be expelled from the labor market.” “The opposite has happened,” stressed the president.
The President of the Government insisted this Friday that the large energy companies and financial institutions “must help the country to get out of this situation, just as Spain helped the banks to get out of the financial crisis”. “Helping your shoulder is not a slogan, it is an obligation,” he stressed.
For this reason, the two formations that make up the Government –PSOE and United We Can– presented yesterday in Congress a bill in which it is proposed to temporarily tax interest and net commissions of the financial entities with revenues of more than 800 million euros, and with a rate of 1.2% on total sales of energy companies that invoice more than 1,000 million euros per year, as well as a penalty for those companies that transfer the tax to the users.
A large part of the large energy companies and financial entities have already expressed their rejection of the new taxes. Precisely the president of Iberdrola, Ignacio Sánchez Galán, has defended that the electric companies “have no extraordinary benefits”, as the Government accuses the sector.
Although the president of Banco Santander, Patricia Botín, has not spoken publicly about the new tax on banks, her entity has warned that the new tax on financial entities will reduce the sector’s capacity to lend 50,000 million.
In this sense, the CEO of Santander, José Antonio Álvarez, lamented yesterday in the presentation of results for the second quarter that the banking tax “stigmatizes the sector” and has warned that, regardless of who it affects, inflation is not Fight with taxes.
The CEO of Bankinter, María Dolores Dancausa, has gone further and has not ruled out that her bank will legally fight for this measure, although she has been cautious in the absence of details about the technical anchor that it will finally have. BBVA, which was one of the first to question the tax, has not ruled out taking it to court either.
Despite all this, the President has stressed that the Government will always put the benefit of the social majority before the particular interests of any minority, no matter how privileged it may be.
“This government does not forget who it governs for. We serve the working middle class, and, when it is necessary to choose, we will be there for them, even if we are uncomfortable for some powers,” he emphasized.
