The president, Pedro Sánchez, guarantees that a third aid package to be applied in 2023 will be approved before the end of the year, which will include “mechanisms” to “contain” the cost of the shopping basket
The Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has announced that the central government is finalizing the preparation of a “third package” of extraordinary measures to try to counteract the socioeconomic consequences of the world crisis unleashed by Russia’s warlike invasion of Ukraine. And he has stressed that these actions will include “mechanisms” to “contain the evolution of food prices.” The socialist president made this announcement this Sunday at a PSC event at the Palau de Congresos in Barcelona attended by more than 2,500 people, and together with the party leader, Salvador Illa; the first deputy mayor of the city and mayor, Jaume Collboni, and the vice-first secretary of electoral organization of the PSC and mayoress of Sant Boi de Llobregat (Barcelona), Lluïsa Moret.
“I announce that at the end of this year, when we approve the new aid package for people, the middle class and workers, we are also going to incorporate mechanisms to contain the evolution of food prices,” he stressed. The cabinet led by Sánchez has made this decision after the price of the shopping basket skyrocketed by 15.4% in October, the biggest rise since the National Institute of Statistics began to publish this historical series in January 1994. .
This approach, in any case, supposes a change of position with respect to the approach that the Council of Ministers maintained and that had meant opening a new gap between the PSOE and Podemos. Not surprisingly, until now the Socialists had refused to propose concrete measures to set a ceiling on some basic foods, as the second vice president and Minister of Labor, the leader of the purple formation Yolanda Díaz, had already proposed in September. This limitation, in the opinion of his namesake in Agriculture, Luis Planas, was not going to be carried out, among other reasons, because “it is not legally possible, nor is it desirable”, in addition to pointing out that it could go against European regulations . In fact, in his opinion, intervening in prices is an “exceptional” measure that could only be adopted in compliance with community regulations.
We will have to wait, therefore, to find out the specific actions proposed by the Executive to contain the rise in the shopping basket, since Luis Planas himself had tried to settle this issue a few days ago, adding that the Executive can only intervene directly in regulated market prices. “And the agri-food is not,” he warned.