“Inflation is the virus that spreads populism”, President Ximo Puig said yesterday at the event that brought together Valencian mayors around the new Valencian Anti-Inflation Alliance. Puig wanted to recover the spirit of the Alcem-nos agreement -“response, unity and trust”- activated during the pandemic to present a new municipal agreement around the effects of the war that families and homes are already feeling.
“Today’s question is what we can do to mitigate the effect of inflation,” Puig launched yesterday, announcing that one of the measures already in force within the ReActiva plan, the 10% reduction in regional prices and rates, will be extended next year. Active since spring, the temporary modification will be published “in the coming weeks,” Puig said, and will come into force on January 1, 2023. It will be reviewed in August, he explained, by then and in time for the next legislature.
When the measure was launched, the Ministry of Finance estimated it, within the budget of the ReActiva plan, at 40 million euros. It benefits more than 1,300,000 Valencians and represents savings for families and companies in the Valencian Community of close to 30 million euros, the Treasury encrypted. However, this second section of the measure announced yesterday has not been assessed as a whole.
This announcement, which benefits, for example, 132,000 Valencian university students, was the announcement that the president reserved for the municipal summit, in which there were interventions by mayors of different political stripes, who explained their measures to combat the impact on their neighbors in the rise in prices.
Puig also quantified the amount that the Generalitat Valenciana has budgeted for local cooperation funds in 2023 at 331 million euros. A figure that he justified because “we believe that city councils are instruments to invigorate our country, out of conviction and efficiency.”
Despite the fact that in the morning he had already announced that he did not support the agreement, Carlos Mazón, president of the PPCV and president of the Alicante Provincial Council, also participated in the meeting. “Each one is doing what they think is best, otherwise we would not have even come here,” he commented, while declaring that he would not support this Valencian Anti-Inflation Alliance because “it seems to us to be unambitious, we believe that it commits everything to local entities and nothing to those who have to continue helping us”. Mazón proposed “a second decentralization, towards the municipal level”, with a “new municipal financing pact”.
He participated as president of this institution, sharing a round table with the other presidents of the Diputación de Valencia and Castellón, Toni Gaspar and José Pascual Martí, as well as with the mayors of Algemesí, Almoradí and the mayor of Betxí.
During his presentation, he explained some of the measures that the institution he presides over has implemented, such as the electricity purchasing center which, he said, has led to savings of up to 17 million euros in the payment of electricity by Alicante City Councils . A measure that he proposes to extend to the Valencian Community, as well as a 100 million euro electricity bond aimed at micro-SMEs and the self-employed, which he called a “small economy”.
