New battle between the Government and businessmen at a time when relations between the two are increasingly tense. The announcement of the creation of an observatory to monitor business margins and their evolution has not sat well with the employers, who see it as a new interference by the Executive in the private sphere, while the unions praise it.
The president of CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, expressed this Wednesday his disagreement with the announcement made by Vice President Nadia Calviño from Washington that the Government will launch an organization to supervise effective competition in the markets for goods and services and an “adequate” distribution. » of income; two elements that –Calviño stressed- are “very important to preserve”. The Basque businessman advanced that they will not support this observatory if what it entails is “more interventionism” in the companies and criticized that they have found out about this initiative through the press, since the Executive “in no case” has raised it with the employers .
The business leader wondered who will be part of this observatory and how and in what way business margins will be measured. “If what we are entering into an interventionist policy regarding what a company’s work is, explain it to us,” he denounced.
In addition, Garamendi vigorously defended that companies “have to make money” in order to invest and for the economy to work, grow and gain size. “It is being said that the financial system has to be robust and it makes little sense to put a tax on demand precisely because it goes against that financial robustness,” criticized Garamendi, who stressed that if the economy works it is because the companies work .
“Greater transparency”
The observatory will institutionalize and monitor the analysis work that the Bank of Spain has already been carrying out and will take advantage of and use the data and statistics of both the entity and the Ministry of Finance or the National Statistics Institute (INE), among others, in order to achieve “greater transparency and quality” of information in an area that is essential at this time for “proper” economic policy decision-making, according to Calviño.
The government’s economic manager defended its need in the face of the global scenario of volatility, high inflation and economic uncertainty that will be the focus of the spring meetings that will take place this week in the US city.
For its part, CC OO sees this public body as “positive” and points out that it should serve to preserve competition, that is, to avoid abuse by companies against consumers or other weaker suppliers in the production chains and to promote a balanced distribution between workers and employers.