The Vice President and Minister of Labor kicked off the campaign on Thursday in A Coruña and during the brief stopover she made in Madrid before heading to Zaragoza, Valencia and Seville, she spoke to La Vanguardia about her electoral program and the possibilities of revalidating the Government of progressive coalition.
There is controversy with his pronouncements on Catalonia. There are even those who say that his position differs from that of the commons.
Catalonia needs that in the next year 2024 we reactivate the dialogue table to reach an agreement there and that this agreement can be voted on by the Catalans. And I promise, by the year 2024, not only to reactivate that table, but to make that agreement possible. Look, I just started the campaign in Galicia and we wanted to start it in Galician while Ada Colau made her speech in Catalan and we did it simply because from Sumar we defend a country of countries, a diverse, multinational country. Sumar understands that it is essential to reactivate the dialogue table in 2024 to reach an agreement that can be voted on by the Catalans. And in this position is all Sumar.
Does Sumar support the right to self-determination?
Sumar subscribes to what I have just told you: reactivate the table and reach an agreement. As soon as we have the agreement, a majority agreement, which I think is what we need, has to be voted on by the Catalans. This is key. Does anyone believe that if there is a Vox and Feijóo government we are going to improve relations between Catalonia and Spain? I don’t think so. When I say that I promise to do it, it is because I know of agreements and it is possible. I promise to do it.
The Prosecutor’s Office has asked Judge Llarena to reactivate the Eurowarrant. Are you in favor of the former president being arrested?
I am in favor of respecting current legislation and, of course, judicial decisions, whether we share them or not. But above all that, once and for all, we do what I have said: dialogue, dialogue and dialogue. Reactivate the table, take it seriously and reach a political agreement that can be voted on.
The universal inheritance for young people has received reproaches, doubting its redistributive capacity and reproaching its final meaning: training, employment or entrepreneurship.
Sumar respects the youth of our country and it is the first time that from a political space we take seriously the serious problem of youth, which is the lack of equal opportunities. This is the greatest cause of inequality in Spain. Young people have difficulties to be able to undertake. And undertaking cannot depend on surnames. If someone wants to set up a photography studio or a bookstore, he has to be able to do it. And two, there is inequality in education today. The son of a worker or a worker has enormous difficulties. Of the 18% of young people who drop out of university education, half do so due to lack of resources. Even I am an example: if I had wanted to be a labor inspector I would not have been able to spend between three and five years preparing myself, I could not afford it. And this universal heritage guarantees us that some State spaces will not be reserved for the children of certain families.
And why universal?
Because the children of Botín or Amancio Ortega are very few. It has to work exactly the same as public health. The success of public health is that the daughter of Amancio Ortega and I go to it. The success of public education is that we all have to go. That is where we equalize socially and do not segregate. I think that somewhat outdated concepts are handled and a deficient understanding of what the public should exist for. Some people think that the public is only for the vulnerable. We believe not. We are moving towards a project for a country of shared prosperity, of shared progress. The redistribution is done through public income, through taxes: it is the large incomes that have to support the equality of opportunities in our country. Remember what Fraga Iribarne said: public health was the one you went to when you had a severe problem. There is the social equality.
One of its star measures is the reduction of working hours. Do you see the employers willing to make this pact, considering that there are businessmen saying that we retire at 70?
Yes, I believe that the pact is possible. For one reason: in collective agreements, today very few already agree to a 40-hour work week. That is why we are committed to reducing the working day by law without salary reduction to 37.5 hours in six months, to undertake a process of social dialogue and reach, within the legislature, 32. Why is the Spanish employers going to enter into this discussion? Because they know that productivity increases, because the old formulas based on face-to-face, during exhausting hours, do not work. And because with Add the unpaid overtime is going to end. Look, when I got to the ministry there were six million overtime hours a week. With the action of the labor inspection we are at three million a week. Look, the day we have today is from 1983. We have to keep moving forward. And you were telling me that the bosses hold…
…Retirement…
…At 70 years old, yes. I am worried because the PSOE does not refuse to open this debate. And I want to be clear here: Sumar defends that someone who climbs a scaffold, a cleaner, a cashier, people who work in teaching and many other groups cannot work from the age of 65. And I appeal to pensioners to come out and defend the public pension system, which is the heart, the jewel of welfare in our country.
You talk about universalizing more health rights: mental health, oral health, ophthalmology… Can it be done without the help of the communities?
This question is very important. First we have to put an end to the shameful precariousness of health professionals. Sumar defends for the public administration, especially health and education, the same reform that we have done in the world of private work, with the labor reform. It is indecent that we have health professionals chaining monthly or weekly contracts. Then, we defend a public pharmaceutical agency because the biggest health expense is the pharmacy. On the other hand, the subterfuges of the autonomous communities to privatize services are going to end. We are talking about a plan to deprivatize public health. And there is a very clear way of indirect privatization, which is called waiting lists. We have 800,000 people pending interventions. 22% have been on the waiting list for more than six months. This is the gateway to private healthcare. We are going to make a law that regulates waiting lists as a subjective right and, therefore, citizens will have the right to be intervened immediately. We will incorporate a public and transparent registry in which each citizen can compare who precedes him and who succeeds him. How will we expand rights? Of course, with the help of the communities, but incorporating them into the portfolio of services as a subjective right. Equity will work throughout the system. This is what 23-J is about.
There are many investments in your program. They have announced a new tax on large fortunes, but how deep will their tax reform go?
This is also the heart of the Sumar movement, economic democracy. In this country there is a profound fiscal injustice, there are privileges and there is a shirking of those who have more. Sumar’s big bet to have a robust and broad welfare state is a comprehensive reform of public revenue. It is profoundly unfair that 85% of personal income tax collection comes from wage income. This is going to end. We will make capital income the most taxable. In corporate tax we have two big holes: bonuses and deductions, which make it a great gruyère cheese and allow a large corporation to pay 3.9% while a hairdresser or bookstore does 17.5%. We want a much broader tax on large fortunes and we want to rework the taxes of the oligopolies, which are fundamentally the distribution, energy and financial sectors. The bank has just distributed 32,000 million in benefits before taxes. This is deeply unfair.
They have announced two million homes for rent in ten years in a country with three and a half million empty houses.
No no. We also talk about the census of empty houses and how to act on them. They are complementary measures. First of all, what we need immediately is to cap the price of leases. It is key, because along with unemployment, it is the main problem for families. Prices must be limited. I am very sorry that the PSOE had not extended the rental moratorium for another six months.
Polls say that the internal tension of the last year has had a serious cost in votes.
Of the surveys, I only consider the tendencies that they indicate and what they refer to the problems of citizenship. Surveys have been telling us for a long time that there is enormous disaffection, higher than in 2015 and therefore we have endeavored to turn politics into a useful project for citizens. Citizens do not want us to talk about ourselves. He doesn’t like noise. This is what all the polls say. Sumar is the revulsive, the decisive force to guarantee a progressive government. We are at stake for the next decade.
