Oviedo (EFE).- The Governing Council has given the green light today to the Demographic Challenge bill that includes many of the proposals of the opinion prepared on this matter by the parliamentary groups with a broad consensus, but which cannot be approved by the Chamber nor enter into force until it is sent to the General Meeting and approved already in the next legislature.
The project, according to the Executive, is intended to provide an adequate and stable legal framework for actions aimed at reducing and reversing, with a transversal approach and oriented to the medium and long term, the impact of the loss of population in a community that is located already on the brink of falling below a million inhabitants and with the highest rate of aging in the country.
The text, of 81 articles, introduces the demographic perspective in all public policies and proposes a zoning that will classify the councils in four categories (demographically dynamic, unstable, in demographic crisis and at risk of depopulation) and specifies the need to establish tax benefits for taxpayers residing in municipalities with special demographic difficulties, as well as certain social or collective groups.
According to Cofiño, this is how a commitment “established in these terms” to close the legislature with a draft law is fulfilled, even if it does not give time for its approval in the House. “It is not a wasted effort, it is more than a gesture. The bulk of the work has already been done to be transferred to parliament in the next legislature unless the next government decides otherwise ”, he stressed.
Demographic perspective “in all public policies”
It is, in his opinion, a path “that will not go back” since it introduces the demographic perspective in all public policies to face a problem common to all Western societies “that has no shortcuts or magic or immediate solutions” and that it is not suitable “for political short-termism” since there are no “safe recipes” in this area.
The future law constitutes, according to the vice president, “a versatile instrument” that will allow future governments a “comfortable” development of action in this field thanks to a regulation focused more on marking the general lines of action from the regional administration than on being a detailed regulation of the activities to be carried out.
Thus, the text contemplates the elaboration of an intervention strategy against the demographic challenge that will determine the general and specific objectives to be developed, and that the bills, decrees and strategic plans are accompanied by a report on their impact in this area.
In addition, it provides for the constitution of a government commission as an advisory, support and coordination body, which will be made up of a member of each ministry, and of an observatory and social council, conceived as a forum for participation, with representation of social agents, the associative movement and the University of Oviedo.
The articles also incorporate the support and integration of the immigrant population through measures that favor their roots in the community and articulate a comprehensive strategy to support emigrants who plan to return.
Regarding the promotion of equality, it is proposed to give priority to women in the requirements for access to aid and subsidies in councils with special demographic difficulties, to promote the creation of friendly houses and drinking bars in rural areas and to prioritize single-parent families in subsidies. , benefits and services. EFE
