But the minister rejects Podemos’ proposals: “The world is full of well-intentioned ideas, but there are few good ones”
“No one has a crystal ball or a magic wand” to predict what will happen to price evolution in the coming weeks, but the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, is confident that the fall in energy costs in The One, which the first links in the food chain are already benefiting from, will soon be passed on in the prices that families pay for the end product.
In an informative breakfast organized by Europa Press, the head of Agriculture explained that the functioning of the food chain is very complex, but that we are “on the verge” of prices starting to fall. If this is not the case and inflation continues to rise, Planas assured that they will take “appropriate action” as they need to thoroughly analyze the situation.
“We are on a plateau with very slight fluctuations. With the VAT cut, we managed to halt a very sharp rise in food prices in January, and we have yet to see the detailed data from the INE – which will be published in two weeks – to see what happens in February happened”, when headline inflation rose again by two-tenths (6.1%) and the underlying asset skyrocketed to 7.7%, the highest level in 40 years.
“Depending on what happened with prices in February, we will take appropriate action,” said Planas. And while he highlighted Spain’s lower food inflation rate (15.4%) than the European Union average (18%), he revealed that climate change and drought are also affecting Spain’s agricultural activity, not just the war, with a much lower production of olive oil, cereals or citrus fruits than in previous years.
However, the measures taken in the future will not be those proposed by Podemos. The government partner has come up with a 14% discount on the shopping basket of families or directly regulates the profit margins of large food stores because, according to him, “money is being made”. When asked, the minister stressed that “the world is full of well-intentioned ideas, but there are few good ones” and concluded that what worries him is “the solution to problems”.
Still, he assured that he understood the “concern” of public opinion and assured that the situation will improve “sooner or later” but that the transfer of the fall in costs to food prices is “slow”. “Inflation is spreading from one country to another and from one sector to another,” said Planas, recalling that after decades of reaching the European Central Bank’s (ECB) targets of inflation below 2% having reached, “came to the conclusion that this situation can be eternal».
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.
