“Feijóo lies blatantly!” They warn in Moncloa. The PSOE seems to have finally found the best opportunity to demonstrate that Alberto Núñez Feijóo intends to move towards electoral victory on July 23 driven by “a mountain of lies”, as Pedro Sánchez reproached him after his only electoral debate. “And without messing up.” The leader of the Popular Party has starred in an interview on TVE on Monday in which he has stated that his formation, whenever he governed, “revalued pensions according to the CPI”. And even he has urged the journalist Silvia Intxaurrondo to rectify, since the presenter of La Hora de La 1 warned him that her statement was not correct. “They did not do it in 2012, nor in 2013, nor in 2017,” Intxaurrondo replied. “I don’t know where you get that from. I reiterate again: we have always revalued pensions according to the CPI ”, insisted Feijóo, who hours later had to admit that his statement was “inaccurate”.
Everyone in Moncloa, in the Government and in the PSOE have come out in a rush, with the same argument that “Feijóo lies without blinking.” And with a call to vote, on July 23, “in favor of decent pensions and against the lies of the PP”, as many socialist leaders have pointed out.
And with data. “The PP raised pensions below the CPI, with the consequent loss of purchasing power for pensioners. This is how the government of Mariano Rajoy did it in 2012, 2013 and 2017”, the Socialists have denounced.
According to his figures, in 2012, the Rajoy government decided to raise pensions for that same year by 1%, when the CPI was at 2.9%. The Executive of the PP, they add, also decided in 2013 to raise pensions for that year by 2%, up to 1,000 euros, and by 1% for the rest, despite the fact that the CPI was 2.9%. And in 2017, the Rajoy government approved raising pensions for 2018 by 0.25%, despite the fact that the CPI was 0.7%.
In addition, the PSOE recalls that “the PP voted not to establish by law that pensions be revalued taking inflation into account”, as approved by the Executive of Pedro Sánchez in this legislature.
In December 2021, the Socialists point out, the PP opposed the bill to guarantee the purchasing power of pensions and other measures to reinforce the financial and social sustainability of the public pension system.
And in March 2023, they add in the PSOE, the PP voted no to royal decree-law 2/2023, on urgent measures to expand the rights of pensioners, reduce the gender gap and establish a new framework sustainability of the public pension system.
Pedro Sánchez himself, this Monday upon his arrival at the summit held in Brussels, has insisted on denying the statements of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. “The ten million pensioners in our country deserve to know the truth”, warned the President of the Government. “And the truth is that when the PP governed, it did not revalue pensions. And the truth is that the PP has systematically voted, over the last few years, against the revaluation of pensions according to the CPI ”, he stressed.
And the truth is also, Sánchez stressed, that when the Government reached an agreement in Brussels, to shield by law this revaluation of pensions, Feijóo went in person to the capital of the community club to meet with the president of the European Commission , Ursula von der Leyen, and with the Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, to demand that they “boycott this agreement”, because “it was not the one the PP wanted”.
The head of the Executive has also recalled that Commissioner Gentiloni asked Feijóo “to make a constructive opposition” for Spain. “Therefore, pensions have been revalued, today they are armored in accordance with a law that was approved by the Cortes Generales without the support of the PP and Vox. This is the truth, these are the data, this is indisputable, and it is what pensioners in our country deserve to know”, Sánchez has settled.
