Echenique predicts that this meeting will end with “empty words” and “smiling” photos and asks Planas to “please stop asking” and take action
The government will meet this Monday with supermarkets, distribution, industry and the primary sector to analyze the evolution of food prices and the impact of the VAT reduction on certain products and to agree on new measures that may be necessary to counter this escalation of the to slow down the shopping cart.
Agriculture Minister Luis Planas will chair the plenary session of the Observatory, having called urgently last Wednesday after learning that food inflation reached 15.4% last month, just three-tenths less than in December.
However, they have little expectation from United We Can that this meeting will come up with far-reaching proposals that offer relief to families. This was predicted this Sunday by his spokesman, Pablo Echenique, who believes that this meeting with “the representatives of ruthless capitalism” will end with “empty words” and “smiling” pictures.
Echenique asked his government partner that “it’s okay” to ask the food sector to “queue a little less”. “That no longer works, so measures must be taken. We proposed a ceiling on maximum prices, the PSOE told us no, so we made a second proposal, which is to subsidize the basic food basket by 14% to bring average prices back to what the food cost at the beginning of the war in Ukraine”, he denounced. And he continued: “This bonus is perfectly achievable, we already did it with petrol and diesel. Now is not the time to shake the government’s legs, it is time to make decisions However, the Executive has already ruled out executing this bonus.
On the table at the meeting, in addition to the evolution of food prices, agricultural organizations and another sector will demand that Planas be included in the list of products with a lower VAT on meat and fish, something that the minister has also provisionally ruled out, claiming that the measures taken by the government are sufficient.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
