Garamendi, on the income pact: "It is essential to talk about pensions"

More than four months after the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced that the Government was going to promote a great income pact, the Executive -represented by eight ministers, commanded by the first vice-president, Nadia Calviño- and the social agents return to sit down today to address a controversial and complex issue. The visis of being able to reach an agreement are few, much less in this first meeting.

Moreover, the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, has charged this Wednesday against the Government, and more specifically against the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, and has accused him of acting in a "permanent electoral key." In fact, he denounced that he has not been summoned to talk about an income agreement, which he has found out about in the press, but about European funds.

And he made it clear that in a hypothetical income pact the main thing you have are pensions. "It is essential to talk about pensions," said Garamendi, who pointed out that each point of increase represents an extra cost of 1,700 million and, if benefits are revalued with the CPI, the additional expense for 2023 could rise to 17,700 million. "We all want pensioners to get paid, for wages to rise, but we don't want the system to break," he warned.

The leader of the businessmen also asked the Government to clarify what is happening with the civil servants' salaries, because it is not yet known what the increase will be for the more than 2.5 million public employees. "If we talk about an income agreement, we have to know what we have to do," he pointed out.

The president of the CEOE, in turn, emphasized that what "really" worries companies is "the main company in the country, which is the State, and what worries us is the efficiency of the State."