Yolanda Diaz: "It is a mistake that the European Central Bank directs economic policy at this time"

Díaz has participated in the Festival that has been held since Friday in Valencia together with the former Vice President of Bolivia Álvaro García Linera. In a conversation moderated by the elDiario.es journalist Iñigo Sáenz de Ugarte, both reviewed the main challenges facing the global economy in the face of the emergency caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and more fundamental problems such as climate change. Both have agreed on the protective role of States in times of economic uncertainty and on the need for peace and diplomacy to end war.

The Minister of Labor has begun her speech with a reproach to the economic measures of the institution directed by Christine Lagarde and has considered that the current situation is not the same as in the previous crisis, so the recipes “cannot be the same ”. “It is a mistake that the policy at this moment is directed by the European Central Bank, which is following the Federal Reserve [de Estados Unidos]. The interest rate policy is negative”, said Díaz, lamenting that this decision is “making mortgages and credit more expensive for companies. ”The most worrying thing is that with the rise in interest rates, the big financial institutions are getting rich again. It is a major risk”, he pointed out.

The context of the crisis in Ukraine and Russia’s use of gas “as a weapon”, according to the vice president, is the root of the inflation problem faced by the countries of the European Union and not a demand crisis. “The recipes that we have to apply cannot therefore be the same as if it were a demand crisis”, she pointed out. She then outlined the lines that, in her opinion, the community government should take: “We have to change the electricity market. Europe is governed by between 20 and 30 energy corporations that are benefiting (…); decarbonization policies must be speeded up (…); And we have to raise wages.

The Minister of Labor is in full negotiation with the experts of the Ministry to trace the path of raising the minimum interprofessional salary. In the talk this Saturday she has promised to raise this indicator again, as well as to revalue pensions. “We are going to change energy policies and those that cause inflation, but protecting people. We have done it in the pandemic, supporting workers and companies, which we have also saved. We are going to raise the minimum interprofessional salary again, we are going to revalue pensions ”, she has promised.

“This is not about investment funds, it’s about democracy”

The Vice President of the Government has recently launched ‘Sumar’, the platform with which she intends to attract all voters to the left of the PSOE. This week, she presented the first team that will be in charge of formulating the programmatic proposals for the new citizen platform, with figures such as the judge of the Supreme Court Fernando Salinas, the columnist and analyst Ignacio Sánchez Cuenca or the environmental researcher Yayo Herrero.

In the points that order the program on which the experts of the platform will work, some that have been planned for this Saturday’s talk, such as housing or food, stand out. On the first issue, Yolanda Díaz has considered that Spain is an “anomaly” when compared to the rest of European countries, especially due to the shortage of public housing. “It is a cause of that expression of Aznar: a determined public policy saying that all of Spain was urbanizable”, she has judged. Something “very serious in social and environmental terms.” “We must undertake a public housing policy with the reuse of the existing housing stock”, she pointed out.

The Government, he added, must “extend the cap on the revaluation of rental income at 2%”. In other words, maintain the measure that prevents owners from increasing the rental price for their tenants by more than 2% year-on-year. But he has gone a little further and has considered that Spain should imitate the measures of some neighbors and freeze rental income: “We must deploy a housing policy that does not give peace of mind to international investment funds but to families and the people. This is not about investment funds, it is about democracy.”

It has also addressed one of the measures announced In a recent interview with this newspaper: their willingness to reach an agreement with food distributors to put a cap on the price of certain products in the basic basket. Díaz has reaffirmed the need for a pact and has ruled out that it is a measure of little value. “Three large distributors, which are not talked about, concentrate 50% of the market with very extensive business margins”, he has criticized to argue a measure that would impose a transfer of those benefits to the lowest incomes, contrary to what happens right now.

Díaz has insisted that there is room for agreement and has pointed out that there is a large French distributor, in reference to Carrefour, which has been willing to take a measure of this type. The minister has defended that her style is “to reach agreements”, but she has pointed out that the Trade Law, in its article 13, speaks of the power of the Government, in certain situations, to determine prices, because “in every country and In all legislation, the general interest must prevail.

Former Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linera, who took part in the conversation via videoconference, gave the example of the policies carried out by his country to contain the price of food, with a general inflation that, he recalled, is around 1% right now. “Bolivia has an annual inflation rate of 1% and that has to do with public policies,” he has said. In the case of the government led by Luis Alberto Arce, these policies have consisted of “freezing the price of fuel with taxes on the big oil companies.” “We subsidize the low price of food in the domestic market by capturing part of the income through export,” he explained. With this, they can put a maximum limit on products such as wheat, corn or oil and “in this way the population can go to the market without wondering how the price increased.”

Diplomacy for the end of the war

Both Díaz and García Linera have spoken about the origin of these economic problems that affect their countries but also the rest of the world. The academic and vice president during the Evo Morales government has criticized the invasion. “All the countries that have been invaded know it. No invasion is justified. No invasion of a large country is justified under an economic, political and moral pretext”, he has said, although he has criticized the “hypocrisy” of some powers that reject the invasion of Ukraine but do not criticize those of other great empires.

In any case, he has defended the “field of negotiations”. “How many deaths are there to expect? How much are we going to tolerate the increase in tariffs in Europe? ”, She has questioned herself. “All wars have been resolved through diplomatic channels. Let’s not wait for more deaths, more crises for this problem to be solved, ”she has said.

“I believe that this is solved with democracy. My position is closer to that of the Pope and [el presidente de la ONU, Antonio] Guterres”, said Yolanda Díaz, who has denounced the “violation of international legislation” that Russia has committed with its invasion and with the call for annexation referendums in the Donbas territories. “This can not be. Democrats when there are violations we condemn them, ”she has said.

However, he has defended “peace and diplomacy” and has criticized some aspects of the NATO summit that was held in Madrid this summer and from which a strategic concept emerged with which he has said he has “reservations”. “The first: migrations are not a hybrid threat. In this concept that has been discussed about autarchies and democracy, my ally is not Turkey. The unambiguous subjection to United States policy generates many doubts in me. What are we going to do if Trump wins? ”, He has asked himself, to defend an autonomous strategy of the European Union. “Europe has to have its own security policy, autonomous, debated, well thought out”, he concluded.