Escrivá appeals to Díaz's "great credibility" in the social dialogue and avoids valuing his support for the unions

MADRID, 29 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, has defended this Monday the "great credibility" of the Second Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, in the social dialogue and has avoided assessing his statements in favor of the mobilizations trade unions to demand a salary increase from the bosses.

In an interview in 'En boca de todos', by Cuatro, collected by Europa Press, Escrivá has avoided the controversy surrounding the vice president and has underlined "the enormous credibility" of the Government to agree on "relevant measures" with the "consensus of the social agents", before the next negotiation to raise the Minimum Interprofessional Salary (SMI).

"I think that on the basis of the issue, which is the SMI, the Government made a very wise decision, which is to establish a time sequence of how much the SMI should rise throughout the legislature. That generates certainty, generates a fixed horizon for the decision-making", said Escrivá.

The minister has kept the Executive's promise to establish a SMI equivalent to 60% of the average salary by the end of the legislature, so the task of the Committee of Experts is to "update those calculations" to set the amount that is missing until reaching that 60%, from the 1,000 euros at which the SMI is now set.

Escrivá has also referred this Monday to his exchange of comments on Twitter with the economist Santiago Niño Becerra, who predicted a closure of 75% of restaurants in the coming months, as an omen of a worsening of the situation.

"It seems to me a 'boutade' to say that. We are in such an uncertain world, with such complex issues to develop, that making these types of statements, which unfortunately we see more than once that they are based on anecdotes or things that are heard in a way flown over, it seems to me that there is no seriousness", explained the minister.

In his opinion, these statements only respond to "a spurious interest in creating a climate of discomfort" or "an attempt at notoriety because catastrophism sells."

"They are creating that feeling that everything is going to go very wrong so that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, pessimism often feeds on itself," said the minister.

Escrivá has appealed to his own credibility as an economist and has recalled that he was BBVA's chief economist in the 2008 crisis, in which he was not "precisely one of the optimists" because there were "clear background elements" for concern. He has also referred to the pandemic, when the situation was "extraordinarily difficult and required enormous force" and at no time was "an optimistic approach" made.

With these two precedents, the minister has ruled out that the Spanish economy is in a similar position, although it is a "very uncertain and complex situation", which depends largely on the decisions made in the war in Ukraine .

The minister has spoken in this interview about the validation of the Royal Decree-Law on the reform of the real income contribution system for self-employed workers, approved last week in Congress.

The head of Social Security has recalled that with this regulation the Government complies with the recommendation of the Toledo Pact and gives "a framework of long-term certainty" to self-employed workers, who "will receive a protective action from the Social Security in pensions and other types of social benefits.

The validation of the decree had the support of the PP, which Escrivá has made ugly by their "little consistency" in pension matters. The popular agreed last year the revaluation of pensions according to the CPI, although later "he did not support the norm and is giving wrong signals in that sense", as the minister has indicated.