The spokesperson of the Gomera Socialist Group Parliamentary Group (ASG) has defended that administrations be allowed greater debt
Curbelo maintains that “ now it is he moment for that all of society, administrations, political parties and citizens, collaborate to move forward in the face of this crisis”
The spokesperson for the Gomera Socialist Group (ASG) Parliamentary Group, Casimiro Curbelo, reiterated this Friday, the 20th, the need for the European Union (EU) to allow the spending rule to be made more flexible so that the surplus can be used, not only by the Canarian councils and town councils, but also by the Government of the Autonomous Community in order to be able to invest these funds in addressing the current health, social and economic crisis caused by the coronavirus. “It is essential that the regional government be able to use these 300 million euros to allocate them to social and health spending, among other purposes,” he argued.
Likewise, Curbelo advocated for greater flexibility, "in such a way that greater indebtedness of the institutions is allowed, since it is the public administrations that will have to face, with economic resources, this serious situation, since most of the private sector is going through serious problems."
Along these lines, he stressed that with the situation of zero tourism that the Canary Islands faces, the economy will suffer serious losses, taking into account that it is the main economic engine. “This sector accounts for close to 35% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and more than 40% of employment for the Islands, so its cessation will cause us to stop earning around 12,000 million euros and lose hundreds of thousands of jobs, so in this scenario we must look for formulas, such as allowing us greater debt to guarantee greater economic resources,” he indicated.
“The European Union has allocated around 750,000 euros to deal with this situation, and the Government of Spain has done the same with another 200,000 euros, which are amounts that reveal the dimension of this crisis,” said the ASG spokesperson in the Canary Islands Parliament. "In the near future, once we can overcome the health aspect that is now the priority, the economy will suffer significant damage, so now is the time for all of society, administrations, political parties and citizens to collaborate to move forward in this scenario," he stated.
In Curbelo's opinion, "we have to direct all political actions and all resources to combat the effects of the coronavirus and to help citizens, especially those most vulnerable groups, who are the ones who need us most."
IGIC and help for the self-employed
The Gomero deputy valued the measures adopted by the Canary Islands Executive in recent days to face the health crisis generated by the Covid-19 coronavirus. In this sense, he highlighted the decision to delay the payment of the Canary Islands General Indirect Tax (IGIC) until June, which will make it possible to have an amount of nearly 600 million euros available to the economy of the Islands.
The ASG spokesperson in the Regional Chamber highlighted that "one of the actions adopted that will help our small and medium-sized businesses will be the subsidy for the self-employed, since the Regional Executive plans to cover 30% of the remaining aid for cessation of activity, since 70% will be covered by the central government." Likewise, he valued the injection of 20 million euros to the health sector.
