• Unidos Podemos slams ongoing ‘pillage’, PSOE says it will vote against budget
• Save the Children says gov’t offers 10pct of pledged funds to fight child poverty
Opposition parties in Spain’s Congress of Deputies on Tuesday levelled sharp criticism across the board at the 2017 federal budget proposal presented to Congress by the conservative Partido Popular (PP) government of Mariano Rajoy.
In a press conference following the budget’s presentation by Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro, the parliamentary group led by Unidos Podemos (United We Can) railed against the budget for what it said was “consolidating the pillage” of the public coffers under the previous Rajoy government, adding that the 2017 proposal did nothing to reduce the social spending gap of previous years and makes no effort to promote higher-quality, better-paying jobs for Spain’s workforce.
Socialist party (PSOE) spokesman Mario Jiménez said separately that the government’s budget proposal is unacceptable because it freezes pensions and undercuts wages and runs counter to the best interests of the vast majority of Spaniards. Jiménez reiterated that the PSOE will not vote in favor of the 2017 budget.
Labour unions and non-government organisations have likewise been critical of the government’s budget proposal, saying it does too little to help working families and to combat poverty and social exclusion in Spain. According to the Spanish affiliate office of global anti-poverty NGO Save The Children, the 100 million euros assigned in the government’s budget proposal to protect families and fight against child poverty amounts to just one-tenth of the 1 billion euros the the government originally promised to deliver to combat child poverty and protect the welfare of families in Spain.
► Read More in Spanish at El País and Público…
