Madrid (EFE) linked to inflation. The clarification has not prevented his party and the PSOE, with Pedro Sánchez at the helm, from having starred in a harsh exchange of accusations.
After Feijóo said in an interview on RTVE that the PP has always raised pensions according to inflation even when it was negative, increasing them by 0.25%, the Popular Party candidate has qualified these words through the networks social.
“The PP raised pensions every year and the PSOE did not,” he said on Twitter, avoiding the word inflation minutes after he stated that “our party never stopped revaluing pensions according to the CPI” and pointed out on RTVE that it is “absolutely correct ” that the PP raised pensions in 2012, 2013 and 2017.
“I don’t know where you get that from… check the data,” Feijóo told the interviewer who accused him of giving false data and asked him to rectify.
“Since there is a newspaper library, you are going to check what I am telling you and if I am wrong I apologize and if it is you I hope they say so in this program,” he stressed.
After these statements, Feijóo has pointed out that his training always raised pensions, although he has not mentioned if it was in accordance with the CPI. “Even when it was easy to freeze them as the PSOE did, we also uploaded them,” he stressed.
“I don’t mind clarifying any statement if it has been inaccurate, contrary to Sánchez, whose arrogance would never allow it. We are still waiting for him to deny all his lies in the debate, such as the one that the PSOE did not freeze pensions, ”he insisted.
Avalanche of criticism from the PSOE
Feijóo’s statements have provoked a cascade of criticism from ministers and socialist leaders. The head of the Treasury, María Jesús Montero, has asked the PP leader to “apologize for lying again” and the second vice president and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, has recalled that “in three of the six years of Rajoy’s government pensions grew below the CPI”.
Also the Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría; that of Social Security, José Luis Escrivá; the president of the Senate, Ander Gil, and the socialist spokesman in Congress, Patxi López, have criticized Feijóo’s “campaign of lies”.
While Gil has said that “they left the pensioners trembling”, López has accused the populares of “making pensioners poorer” when they govern.
Rotundo has also been the President of the Government and PSOE candidate for re-election. From Brussels, Pedro Sánchez has accused Núñez Feijóo of lying about the revaluation of pensions when he has governed his party and has reproached him for voting against the popular to increase these benefits according to the CPI.
But PP leaders continued the exchange. The national coordinator of the popular, Elías Bendodo, through his Twitter account, gave Feijóo’s attitude towards a Sánchez who does not give explanations as an example.
2013: PP pension reform
The Government of Mariano Rajoy approved in 2013 a reform of pensions in which they stopped revaluing according to the CPI to link them to the financial situation of Social Security with a new rate of increase that was at least 0.25%.
In this way, while Social Security was in deficit, pensions only increased that minimum of 0.25% annually.
During some years, such as 2016 and 2017, inflation was greater than the rise of that quarter point, so pensions lost purchasing power. According to the INE, the inflation rate as of December was 1.6% in 2016 and 1.1% in 2017.
However, in 2014 and 2015 pensioners benefited from this increase model since inflation was below 0.25%.
Finally, in 2018, the Toledo Pact in Congress, with the support of the PP and almost unanimously recommended eliminating that revaluation index to re-link it to the CPI.