The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has announced that the Government will lower the VAT on gas from 21% to 5% starting in October and until the end of the year initially, although this period may be extended throughout 2023, to cope with high prices. In an interview on Cadena Ser, Sánchez made this announcement just one day after the PP announced that its leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, would request the same tax reduction in the debate in the Senate next Tuesday. “We will do it now in the fall and winter. It is reasonable that we try to reduce the heating bill of the citizens of the country ”, assured the Chief Executive during the interview, in which he explained that the measure will initially last three months, until December 31. “We will open ourselves to extending it throughout the next year while this difficult situation lasts,” he added. Sánchez has pointed out that the Government has already reduced electricity-related taxes by 80% (approximately a year ago, also after requesting it by the PP, the Executive lowered VAT on electricity from 21% to 5%). With this, he has said, citizens have saved “ten billion euros”. However, he has assured that the Executive can do “much more” and that is why he has proposed the reduction of VAT on gas: “We are going to do it in line with the economic policy that we are deploying at the beginning of the energy crisis”, in the sense of “selective tax rebates for the benefit of the middle and working class”. The announced measure follows the line of the one announced by the German government on August 18, when Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz, with whom Sánchez met on Tuesday, announced a drop in VAT on gas from 19% to 7% between October of this year and March 2023. After his announcement, Feijóo has celebrated that “it has been useful for something” that the PP requested the appearance of the President of the Government in the Senate. Sánchez “He continues to accept some measures of the PP after criticizing them”, he wrote on his Twitter profile, and added: “He should do it as soon as possible and decisively. He is always late to help the Spanish”. “It has been useful for something since we asked for the appearance of @sanchezcastejon in the Senate. It continues assuming some measures of the PP after criticizing them. He should do it as soon as possible and decisively: he is always late to help the Spanish. https://t.co/dCjePkZT8B“ — Alberto Núñez Feijóo (@NunezFeijoo) September 1, 2022 Does not contemplate supply restrictionsThe Prime Minister has assured that he “does not contemplate” applying restrictions on gas supply this winter, since, Although “the context is very uncertain”, Spain has “a much more comfortable and secure situation” than other European countries that depend more on Russian gas. And he explained that his Executive is already talking with industry, companies, parliamentary groups and the autonomous communities to study more measures depending on how the situation evolves. The president has stressed that his Government “is going to act not in any direction ” in the face of this crisis derived from the war in Ukraine, but “for the middle and working class” which is the one that suffers from the rise in prices. For this reason, he has insisted on the need for “fiscal justice” and “equitable distribution of the burdens of this war”, with which he has defended the extraordinary tax on banks and energy companies, which are the ones that “have benefited” from inflation. Sánchez acknowledged that autumn could be complicated given the “high uncertainty” derived from the war in Ukraine, but he assured that, “without entering into euphoria, we cannot fall into catastrophism either” since some indicators are positive and the work of the Government is to “provide certainty” with measures such as the one that has been announced regarding gas. He reproaches the PP for its “spurious use” of ETA after criticism for bringing prisoners closerAmong other questions, Sánchez has been asked about the criticism of the PP for the approach to the Basque Country of 13 ETA members, including Francisco Javier García Gaztelu ‘Txapote’ (assassin of Miguel Ángel Blanco and Gregorio Ordóñez, among others) and Henri Parot, author of attacks such as the Zaragoza barracks and murderer of Francisco Tomás y Valiente. After the Popular Party has accused the Government of “humiliating” the victims to seek the support of EH-Bildu, the chief executive has reminded the PP that, when he governed, he brought “hundreds of ETA prisoners to Euskadi while ETA killed and kidnapped people”. He has also assured that these prisoners “are going to serve their sentence” and has defended that they are not “collective approaches” but individual ones that “comply” with prison regulations and are carried out “under judicial scrutiny.” “What we have seen over the years , after the disappearance of ETA is the spurious use and without any kind of shame by the PP”, added Sánchez, who stressed that the PSOE has always had a position of forging “great agreements” both against ETA terrorism and with the jihadist And he has accused the PP of using “anything”, even a “collective success such as peace”, to try to “undermine” the Government. On the other hand, Sánchez has been very critical of Feijóo, whom he has said is “quite docile with those interests that led him to lead the PP”, and has accused him of going hand in hand with the energy companies that were fighting against the government’s measures. He has also accused him of not wanting to agree on anything with the Executive. It asks the employers to reach agreements in the collective agreements to give “certainty” Among other issues, the Government will summon the social agents in the coming months to sit at the collective bargaining table on the Interprofessional Minimum Wage (SMI), in order that in 2023 it will be equivalent to 60% of the minimum wage, something that the CEOE rejects. In this sense, he has called “especially the employers” to reach agreements in collective agreements to give “certainty” to both workers and companies. In addition, the social agents have pending their own negotiation on the Employment Agreement and Collective Bargaining (AENC), suspended since May. “If we return collective bargaining to the center of labor relations, what I ask, and particularly of employers, is that they reach agreements, those collective agreements,” added Sánchez. The second vice president, Yolanda Díaz (Unidas Podemos), He also called employers and unions this Wednesday to sit down to negotiate, although previously he was in favor of union mobilizations. When asked if the employers have been “up to the task”, Sánchez replied: “The social agents have been up to the task throughout this legislature, we must vindicate and recognize it. We have reached 15 agreements (…) so important like labor reform. Even so, he has expressed his “respect” for the “right to demonstrate of any group”, as “it could not be otherwise in a democratic society”. There will be an increase in defense spending and it will negotiate with United We Can On the other hand, Sánchez has reaffirmed his commitment to increase defense spending in the next General State Budgets and has assured that he will negotiate for this with United We Can. After Díaz has denied that this increase has been included in the spending ceiling for 2023, Sánchez has assured that the vice president is being “loyal to the line of argument” of the Government. Sánchez has defended that the increase in defense is not just to “dissuade” Russia from its claims in Europe, but also to comply with European and Atlantic commitments and economic and business commitments. And he recalled that his Government has raised the salary of the military, which had not been updated since 2005. “The families of the soldiers and the troops surely know it,” he added. According to Sánchez, it is about 100,000 jobs qualified distributed throughout Spain and has mentioned Albacete, Euskadi, Ferrol, Cartagena or Cádiz. That is to say, of “an industry deployed throughout the territory”, in which there is also investment in cybersecurity, in companies that, for example, work from Malaga. “It would be easier if we had the PP in common sense policies”, he has lamented, but he has admitted that “since that does not happen” he is forced to agree with other political forces.