The Airef charges against Escrivá and his jump to the Ministry: “It is not good”

2023-06-22 18:56:05

The controversy between the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (Airef) and the Ministry of Social Security does not cease. The last exchange of blows came from the mouth of the president of the Authority, Cristina Herrero, who deplored the disqualifications made against her report on the Minimum Vital Income (IMV). In it, the agency warned that this benefit stagnated at 284,000 households in 2022, thus leaving out 65% of the total families that could receive it. It didn’t take half an hour to get a response from the portfolio led by José Luis Escrivá, who charged against “the poor quality and lack of foundation” of some data and analysis, and considered that these “deficiencies” put “his conclusions into question ».

Herrero, after acknowledging her surprise at the ministerial attacks against her, the institution itself, its Advisory Council and the experts with whom they collaborated to give conclusions “that have been known for a long time”, defended that the institution that she presides carries out its evaluations “since independence”, in which “political approaches” have no place, but “only technical data. It can be expected that there will be differences, but always supported by objective data and rigorous technical arguments. In no case can disqualifications be expected.” He has also rejected that Airef sees as “something negative” that a person leaves the benefit, since that would mean that the beneficiary has improved his income level. «The discrepancy is good, but there are limits that are imposed by loyalty and institutional respect. The purpose of Airef is that whenever things work better ».

In the APIE courses, Herrero fired a bullet at the minister, whom she reminded that she “does not see herself” as a minister in any government because “it is not good” for independence to go from Airef to the Executive, alluding to the passage of Escrivá –when he was president of the institution– to lead the Ministry. «No, I do not see myself as a minister in any government. Moreover, in my opinion, it is not good to go from Airef to the Government and it would certainly be impossible to go from the Government to Airef. I believe that this flow between an independent body and a government is not good for the institution. For this reason, she recalled that when the minister passed to the Government of Pedro Sánchez, she felt the need to “reaffirm the independence” of Airef and insisted that the link between the institution and the Government forces us to demonstrate “even more” the analysis and the independence of Airef.

Herrero pointed out that Airef held up to seven conversations with the Ministry before sending them the draft of the report, and another three after sending them the text. In all of them, according to Herrero, only considerations of a “qualitative nature” were made. He once again defended that the figures in the report are “unquestionable” and warned the ministry led by Escrivá – with whom he has not held any dialogue since the controversy – that the “disqualification cannot be justified by any circumstance. Honestly, I believe that we cannot afford, neither the Ministry nor AIReF, to waste time with this type of consideration, but what we have to do is work for benefits that have to reach more homes than those that are reaching “.