Javier Milei and his followers in Spain and in Europe as a paradigm of everything that puts the European project at risk and everything that the PSOE comes out to combat on 9-J. The socialists have found in the diplomatic clash with Argentina following Milei’s insults and attacks on the Spanish Government during the Vox ultra convention, the perfect context to resize their campaign message for the Europeans.
“The enemy is populism that bets on less Europe because it is its way of expanding its message of every man for himself. Because less Europe is more chaos, more poverty and more inequality,” defend Ferraz’s campaign team, where they point out the ultra event last weekend in Madrid as the great threat that looms over Western democracies today.
“That concentration is a reflection of what they really want. They come to Spain because we are the bastion of the social model and progress that they want to fight. And that should be interpreted as a warning: we cannot take for granted neither democracies nor the values and rights and freedoms of Europeans. We have to take care of it and, for that, we have to put our foot on the wall,” they maintain from the candidate’s team, Teresa Ribera.
With this speech, the socialists aspire to mobilize the progressive electorate to reverse the polls that give victory to the right. And they aspire to do so based on an electoral program with a marked social and progressive profile with the environment and fiscal policies as two of the fundamental axes.
In the program released this Tuesday, the PSOE champions some of the policies implemented by the Government of Pedro Sánchez during the last six years. And that is why they propose to export at the European level some of the measures that the Executive boasts in its legislative balance.
In contrast to the neoliberal recipes of the right and the extreme right, the socialists propose a clearly redistributive European fiscal policy. The program includes, for example, the creation of a European tax on large fortunes, as well as a special tax on the extraordinary profits of banking in the European Union.
“Sources of income will be considered such as solidarity taxes that tax extraordinary profits, the taxation of sectors such as banking whose added value is undertaxed, taxes on financial transactions, the collection derived from the application of Pillar 1 of the OECD and the taxation of large fortunes and capital gains, including share buybacks,” the program reflects.
This document exposes inequality in the distribution of wealth as one of the great challenges facing European societies. “The concentration of wealth and the increase in inequalities are some of the biggest challenges facing Member States. In the EU, the richest 1% hold 25% of all wealth, undermining social and economic cohesion.
The PSOE also focuses on large multinationals in its program: “We consider that companies, particularly large multinationals, must pay their fair share, which is why we defend the development of adequate minimum taxation in the Corporate Tax. internationally and within the EU, achieving greater harmonization of the tax while avoiding a race to the bottom, with the aim of achieving a more equitable distribution of tax revenues between the countries where transnational corporations operate.
Much of this revenue, they defend from Ribera’s candidacy, should go to implement a more ambitious and more equitable green agenda between territories and between social classes, another of the campaign axes that will confront the ideology of the right and the extreme right.
“There is a right that is inclined to give up: instead of facing reactionary speeches and asking for more integration or more rights or more advances, what we hear are xenophobic speeches and we see an attitude that nothing happens, that they can join the European institutions without problems”, criticizes Ferraz’s campaign team.
The socialists assume that the clash with the PP during the campaign will largely turn the path towards 9-J into a very national contest. Although they shy away from the idea of turning the appointment with the polls in the European elections into a plebiscite about Sánchez or Feijóo. “We would like the PP to boast of Europeanism and not so much a campaign of half-truths or open lies trying to discredit the national government. But the truth is that we expect what we have already seen: an absolute surrender to the extreme right. If they propose it as a plebiscite it will be because they have no plan for Europe and they prefer to return to the national mud,” they lament.
The socialists have designed a campaign throughout the territory with more than 800 scheduled events. The President of the Government will accompany Teresa Ribera in at least five of them. Pedro Sánchez will open this Thursday in Valencia and also plans to go to Seville, Valladolid and Malaga before closing on June 7 in Madrid.
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