Calviño accuses the PP of damaging the image of the Spanish economy before international investors

The PP insists on demanding tax reductions: "Do it at once or leave"

MADRID, 8 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The PP has demanded that the Vice President of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, apply a tax cut to combat the current inflationary spiral, and the 'number two' of the Government has accused the 'popular' of wanting to damage the image of the country, both the trust of citizens and international investors.

"Realize once and for all, lower taxes and give confidence to the Spaniards. Do it once and for all or leave", said the new general secretary of the Popular Group, Carlos Rojas, during the control session with the Government, in which he questioned the credibility of Calviño to manage the crisis.

"What a tone... 'Do what I say or leave'. Is that your economic policy?", the vice president reproached, wondering if for the PP "there is only one recipe and, everything that is not that (lower taxes), it's wrong.

Rojas lamented that Calviño's optimism "fails in the face of facts", he recalled the inflation data and the diagnosis of the Bank of Spain on the slower exit from the crisis by Spain, compared to the rest of the countries Europeans, and asked "what confidence can a government give to the brawl".

Likewise, he has accused the Government of being "incapable" of executing European funds and has anticipated that the increase in costs caused by inflation will take away the viability of many companies, especially SMEs. "Some are not going to last. Do you realize the reality?", He has asked him.

In her reply, the economic vice president lamented that, no matter how much she changed interlocutors in the control session -- Calviño has dealt with different 'popular' deputies in recent weeks -- the speech was "the same": "Everything is a disaster, everything is black," he lamented.

For this reason, he has urged the PP to force "a change of attitude", taking into account the data on permanent contracts and affiliation, and that Spain is "the country that is going to grow the most within the large European economies".

For Calviño, the PP's strategy is "very clear": "Deteriorate the confidence of citizens and international investors." "It is wrong that they do it here, but that they do it every time they go out is an attitude that is not wrong; it is irresponsible", he snapped.

Calviño has also confronted Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, spokesman for Vox, who has reminded him of his statements months ago that inflation had "peaked", and has raised his suspicions about possible stagflation, given the cut in forecasts for increase.

Thus, he has pointed out how this cut brings Spain closer to a "stagnation" of its economy and delays the recovery of its GDP levels prior to the pandemic. "We are not the ones that have grown the most, we are the ones that have come from further back," said Espinosa de los Monteros.

Calviño has replied to the Vox spokesman that, although the rise in inflation in Spain has been high, it is not as high as that registered in other European countries, which in the harmonized rate for the month of May places it below that registered in Germany (8.7%), the Netherlands (10.2%) or Belgium (9.9%), something that responds to an "exogenous cause" of it, common to all European countries.