Madrid (EFE).- Unidas Podemos proposes a 14.4% discount on the price of a basic food basket, to bring it down to pre-pandemic levels, a proposal that the socialist wing of the Government views with caution and advocates first analyzing the impact of the measures adopted.
The approach of Podemos is, as was done with fuels, to apply to a basic shopping basket -with products such as milk, oil, eggs, meat, fish, fruit or bread- a bonus that would be effective when paying in box and that would appear reflected in the purchase receipt.
This was explained this Thursday by the Minister of Social Rights, Ione Belarra, who has presented said proposal to the Socialists and has trusted that it can materialize in a royal decree.
The initiative is launched after the PSOE’s refusal to cap prices, as the formation raised a month ago, and in view of the increase in food prices at a higher rate than the CPI, argues the purple formation.
“We have made this other proposal to the PSOE taking into account the data that shows that the reduction in VAT has not had a sufficient impact and has been limited…we think that it would have an immediate effect on the families’ shopping basket”, together to other measures such as those aimed at alleviating the impact on mortgages, Belarra stressed.
In addition, it proposes that the Food Information and Control Agency monitor prices on a weekly basis, with special attention to large stores, and impose fines if companies increase their profit margins. In case of repeated infringement, the consideration would become similar to that of a tax offence.
Díaz insists on continuing to act on food prices
The Second Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, has defended “continuing to act” to lower the price of the shopping cart which is, together with mortgages and rents, a very important problem “on which we are not acting or intervening insufficiently”.
“We must take steps forward” because for families it is “mission impossible (…) to guarantee health and healthy food”, while distribution companies and large corporations “have business margins that are more than relevant”.
In this sense, Belarra has insisted on an extraordinary tax for the large distributors and an “exhaustive control” over the benefits attributed to the large chains, while stressing that the proposal to cap the shopping cart continues to be for they the best and “cheapest”.
The PSOE advocates analyzing the impact of the measures adopted
For her part, the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, has urged that the measures already adopted be allowed to take effect, such as the VAT reduction on basic foods or aid for farmers.
Likewise, he recalled the meeting that the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, will hold on February 20 with the Food Chain Observatory, which brings together all the organizations from the different links in the distribution, to address the price of food.
Montero explained that the objective of this meeting is to “listen to the sectors” and has indicated that the initiatives that come from the Government cannot be “simply for political debate”, but rather “have to be viable”.
Along the same lines, the First Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, has defended that the inflation in January shows that the measures they are taking work and has assured that “they have to continue to have an impact” throughout the year.
Precisely, the meeting on Monday intends to analyze “how these measures are being implemented and how we can continue on this path of relief, especially for families in the field of food”, since the intention of the Government is to continue taking all those measures that seems appropriate “and that do not have counterproductive effects.”
Precisely yesterday, the association of manufacturers and distributors of large consumption (Aecoc) estimated at 17% the rise that food prices would have experienced this January if VAT on basic items had not been reduced, which finally was 15.4 %, according to the INE.
