Sánchez highlights the Government's management of inflation as his main asset in the face of the general elections

Defends the need for a reform of industrial policy and bureaucracy in the EU

MADRID, 17 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has defended that Spain has the lowest inflation rate in the European Union thanks to the responses of the Executive at the national and European level, highlighting the country's commitment to fiscal consolidation without affecting economic growth and job creation.

This was stated during an interview with the US network CNBC, where he expressed confidence that the country's economic growth and job creation will be one of the Government's "main assets" ahead of this year's general elections.

"I believe that in this very uncertain context in which the economy of the European Union finds itself, due to the war in Ukraine, the achievements and positive economic development of Spain are one of our main assets", stated Sánchez, who is in the Swiss town of Davos to participate in the World Economic Forum.

Asked about the economic challenges that the world will face in 2023 --with the forecast that a third of the countries will enter recession--, the Prime Minister recalled that the international financial institutions expect Spain to grow above the European Union average.

Likewise, he stressed that during 2022 the country registered a growth of five percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), that the Spanish inflation rate is the lowest in the Union and that "a very strong" job creation is being registered thanks to to the reforms applied by the Government, European funds and the labor reform carried out last year.

In this sense, he has defended that European funds have not been overwhelmed by the events of 2022, pointing out that 80 percent of them will be allocated over the next few years to the digital transition and the ecological transition.

"Just to give you some figures, thanks to these funds, what we are achieving is transforming Spain into the fifth largest economy in the world in terms of wind energy production and the eighth in renewable energy," he said, stating that the Government is transforming and modernizing the economy "also in the digital".

He has also highlighted that Spain is trying to attract investments and global companies in semiconductors and chips, one of the promises made during the Davos Forum last year.

The head of the Spanish Executive has maintained that Spain has the lowest inflation rate in the European Union thanks to responses at the national level and at the European level as the Iberian exception.

In addition, he welcomed the five aid packages approved so far in the Congress of Deputies to respond to the economic and energy crisis.

"The results of these packages and also of the reforms that we have been asking for from the beginning at the European Union level have led us to reduce our inflation rates by five points in five months," Sánchez stressed.

All in all, he has shown himself to be committed to Spain's fiscal consolidation but "without killing economic growth and job creation", stressing that Spain's economic development is one of its main assets.

"Our forecast is to reach a public deficit of 2.9 percent in 2025, and a public debt of less than 110 percent of our GDP," he added.

Thus, he highlighted that in the last three years the Government has carried out a total of 190 structural reforms to improve the economy.

Sánchez stressed that "it is good news" that the United States is committed to the ecological transition after it carried out the Inflation Reduction Act in October, a measure with which the Biden Administration plans to invest 369,000 million dollars in energy green, mostly aid for class sectors such as the automobile.

However, it has opted for a reform of the Union's industrial policy, as well as its bureaucracy, to deal with the economic consequences that US subsidies could have for Europe, which are intended to boost investment -- to the detriment of European industry--.

"On the part of the European Union, we have to learn and we have to reform some internal aspects of our industrial policies, such as state aid, cut red tape and try to send a message to industry around the world that Europe, and therefore Of course, Spain is a good place to settle and develop", explained the President of the Government.

Meanwhile, he has set the war in Ukraine as an example as a precedent for cooperation that serves to bring the United States and the European Union closer, highlighting the importance of bilateral negotiations in this regard.