Garamendi (CEOE) says that he is not opposed to raising wages, but to indexing them to inflation

MADRID, 6 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, stated this Wednesday that his organization is not opposed to raising wages, but to indexing them to inflation, as this would cause second-round effects that would make Spain lose competitiveness and companies , productivity.

Garamendi, in statements to Onda Cero collected by Europa Press, criticized the fact that they now want to disqualify businessmen for their position on this matter.

"We have signed 15 agreements (with the government and the unions), I say this because it seems that now we smoke cigars. We have gone from being Obi Wan Kenobi to Darth Vader," he lamented.

The president of the CEOE has assured that the purpose of this afternoon's meeting with the Government is to talk about European funds, not about the income pact, although he will not shy away from talking about it if the Executive puts it on the table, but "seriously ".

Thus, for Garamendi, it is essential to also talk about pensions or the salary of civil servants, due to the costs that this also implies for the State. "Each pension point is 1,700 million and in next year's replacement of the 'baby-boom' it is 4,000 million euros more. We can be talking about 17,700 million more cost in pensions", he stressed.

"We all want pensioners to get paid and wages to rise, but what we don't want is for the system to break," said Garamendi, who denounced that the State "is also influencing inflation to skyrocket", since it is collecting more of 20,000 million euros thanks to it and part of it should be devoted to meeting the basic needs of citizens.

In relation to a new increase in the minimum interprofessional salary (SMI) such as the one that the second vice president of the Government and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, would support, Garamendi considers that "the messages of the vice president are purely electoral key" and believes that "they do not it is realistic" what it proposes.

"We are not with electoral key messages. We are not going to play the elections or the political element," he stressed.