The current president of the Government Pedro Sanchez appeared a few minutes ago to call elections on November 29. The country’s top leader has made this decision after the growing internal conflict in the country caused by migration from Ceuta and the housing problem and the fall of housing decrees.
After several days with tension in the air, calls and other doubts, the country’s top leader has left to bring forward the elections months ahead of schedule and summarize a legislature with several arguments that leave doubts.
Most notable phrases from Pedro Sánchez’s speech
In his appearance, which did not last long, he left several sentences about the balance of the achievements of the left-wing coalition and some other reflections that he forcefully presented, some such as:
- “We have had to work with a very harsh congressin which many confuse agreeing with betraying and blocking with winning.”
- “We have had to fight against very powerful economic elites who are not running for election but who want to control our country“
- “We have had to deal with the worst opposition our democratic history has ever known.“: to which he explains that it is “an opposition without any sense of state, which has not stopped questioning the legitimacy of our electoral system, blocking measures and voting against policies that are good for the country and using its regional and municipal power to boycott policies that are good for ordinary people.”
- “We have transferred more resources than ever to the regional governments and they have bought penthouses and privatized hospitals“.
- “Throughout these three years Spain has become the economy that grows the most and creates the most jobs in the entire European Union” explains that “the purchasing power of our citizens has increased three times as much as that of large European economies such as France or Germany.”
- “We have strived to build a better world by supporting Ukraine, the European Union and the United Nations in their darkest moments, denouncing genocidaires when others remained silent, fighting tyrants, technoligarchs and speculators who want to destroy the future of our children to expand their pockets.
- “All this has turned Spain into a world reference for peace, feminism and prosperity. And has allowed us to reap the best economic, social and environmental results that a democratic government has had in our country, the best“.
- “I know that we have made mistakes and we have not managed to do everything we had set out to do.“
- “You Spaniards have to decide what role you want, whether to join that far-right wave that is regressing wherever it governs or whether you want Spain to continue being a bastion of openness and social justice and environmental responsibility. If you want our country to go backwards or continue advancing“If you prefer to have a government that works for the interest of the social majority or you prefer to hand over the reins of the country to a far-right coalition“
Counterargument to the ideas of Pedro Sánchez
The increase in GDP does not mean that the well-being of Spaniards has improved, this is due to three reasons: inflation (the largest in Europe) the destiny of the Next Generation funds that have not increased productivity and therefore salaries; and finally the rise in rents which have tripled since Sánchez is in government.
Some economists explain that the best indicator to measure how the well-being of society is evolving is not the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the disposable income of households, nor the total consumption made by the group of families that make up an economy (many times distorted by the increase in population), but rather the real effective consumption per capitathat is, the value of what each person buys, discounting the rise in prices.
Consumption per head in real terms has gone from growing 2.3% annually on average during the period 2013-2019 to 0.8% during the period 2019-2025.
Labor productivity barely exceeds 2015 levelsdespite the fact that the net capital stock has increased significantly. This decoupling between investment and productivity suggests that recent growth has relied more on the use of factors than on efficiency gains, a key element to value potential growth and generate purchasing power for the entire society.
Residential housing prices €2,153/m² grow at rates close to 13% year-on-yearwell above the growth in salaries (€26,250) and prices as a whole.
To apply for a mortgage, the bank requires you to have saved the down payment (20% of the value of the house). The problem is that around 86% of people who live in rent do not have enough prior savings to pay that down payment, which leaves them trapped without being able to buy.
Although people today owe less money to banks than in the 2008 crisis and the general savings rate is around 12% of income, the cost of living is very pressing. Almost 1 in 5 indebted families (18.9%) have to spend more than 70% of their salary just to pay for housing, food and essential bills. In households with lower incomes that have debts, this suffocation reaches 65.5%.