Calviño says he would have lowered gasoline taxes if carriers had seen it useful

MADRID, 25 May. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The First Vice President of the Government and Minister of Economic Affairs and for Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño, assured this Wednesday that if carriers had seen it useful, the Executive would have lowered taxes on gasoline.

Calviño, in statements to Telecinco collected by Europa Press, has stressed that, contrary to what the PP argues, the Government has lowered taxes, although selectively, applying reductions in the taxation of electricity.

"We have lowered the price of gasoline, not the taxes, because the carriers told us that it was not useful to them. If not, we would have lowered them. We do not reject measures per se, but we want to take the most effective measures at all times," he said. the minister affirmed.

Calviño has defended that both the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the rest of the governments do not support a general reduction in taxes, but a selective one, something that he considers "logical" if one takes into account that the main problem in Spain is inflation.

"A generalized tax cut feeds inflation, that's why nobody recommends it," remarked the vice president, who also recalled that the PP voted against the tax cut on electricity and the bonus on fuel prices.

The vice president has denied that the Government is optimistic in the description it is making of the economic situation, since "all the organizations" foresee that Spain will grow between 4% and 4.8% this year, which is a "strong recovery" .

Regarding the warnings from Brussels due to the level of debt in Spain and the greater expense involved in linking the update of pensions with the CPI, Calviño stressed that the Commission "has endorsed" all the reforms proposed by the Spanish Government, as well as the debt reduction path until 2025.

"We are a responsible government that is lowering the deficit and the debt in a path that was obviously broken to respond to the pandemic, but we are already absorbing that extra cost of responding to the pandemic and we have to continue along that line, with a fiscal policy responsible," he said.

Calviño has also reiterated the Executive's commitment to updating pensions in line with inflation and has indicated that older people have been the ones who have suffered "the most havoc" during the pandemic.

"Right now what we have to do is give them peace of mind and support. They have to feel that society as a whole is with them. There is a unanimous commitment from Parliament to maintain the purchasing power of pensions and we are going to fulfill that commitment. , continuing with a responsible fiscal policy that allows us to continue reducing the debt and the deficit in parallel, and for this the most important thing is to have strong growth", he highlighted.

With regard to the next rise in interest rates announced by the European Central Bank (ECB), Calviño has indicated that rates will be positive again in the second half of the year and that "we must prepare for it".

In any case, he pointed out that the vast majority of mortgages are being made at a fixed rate, that families "have mattresses" thanks to the measures that were adopted during the pandemic to protect their income, and that the Government has taken advantage of the period low interest rates to improve financing conditions.

"We have to have the most solid economy possible so that this rise in rates does not have negative effects," he stressed.

The vice-president has also defended that such a strong recovery of the Spanish economy would not be understood without the Recovery Plan. In this sense, he has valued the Perte of microchips approved yesterday by the Council of Ministers, for which there are already contacts with companies, as well as the work carried out in Davos by President Pedro Sánchez "to put Spain on the map ".