NEW YEAR BRINGS NEW HOPE FOR SPAIN
NEW YEAR BRINGS NEW HOPE FOR SPAIN
(Benidorm)  rajoy_250With the New Year comes new hope for a country battling desperately with the recession. There are nearly 5 million out of work and so new President Mariano Rajoy lost no time in announcing his plans to save Spain just before the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve. Those with high earnings can expect a rise in income tax, public sector worker’s wagers have been frozen for the year and IBI (Spanish property tax) will rise also in 2012. These are just some of the changes needed to claw back the deficit.

 

20th November 2011 saw the right wing Partido Popular sweep to power with an absolute majority in Spain.
Voters appeared to be tired of the government of the socialists and were looking for a change to help propel Spain out of the recession.

The transition from one regime to another is gradual in Spain, and it was almost a month later on the 19th of December, that new president of government Mariano Rajoy took the podium in congress (the lower house) for his inauguration, and to outline some of his proposals.

With unemployment in Spain at over 22%, not surprisingly labour reform is high on his list, with measures to encourage small businesses to take on the under 30´s through social security payment subsidies.
Also a wide raft of measures to increase competivity, including the shock move to change the law regarding “long weekend” holidays, known as “puentes”. All but the most important fiesta days will now fall on a Monday, and not midweek, whereby people have traditionally taken an extra day off to link the two! This is hoped to raise productivity.

Pensions were also in the spotlight, with the pre-election promise to re-link retirement pensions back to the inflation index, (so pensioners don’t lose their spending power) being confirmed, good news for those of us receiving a Spanish pension!

There were also changes to laws regarding early retirement, and a confirmation of the gradual rise to 67 years as the retirement age.

The banking sector is to see changes in supervision and regulation and measures to make them more agile and decisive.

With regard to the more general economy and its performance, Rajoy underlined his commitment to reduce the deficit to 4.4% of GDP by the end of 2012. He confirmed that he will have to have an extra “budget” on 31st March 2012 to fine tune the accounts, as the figures for this year are of course not yet available.

There were also changes to how self employed people pay IVA (VAT), effectively not having to pay the tax until they themselves had collected payment from their customers (that’s handy!)

Happily, there was no mention at the time of writing of a general rise in the rate of IVA (fingers crossed!)
He declared his intention to have bi-lingual education in English/Spanish right across the country, with tri-lingual in areas where regional languages are spoken such as Cataluña or the Comunidad Valenciana.
There were over 50 different headings of policy areas and changes to them, with tens of different subheadings, ours is just a snapshot of what is to come over the next 4 years.

Hopefully all this will lead to a new start and a brighter future that this great country deserves.

» MULTIMEDIA :

»Share this notice :

want to comment on this news?

We want to know your opinion

Please, repeat the code in the green box.

RoundTown Reminder
Do you want us to remind you when the new edition of Roundtown out? Enter your email below and we'll send you a "Roundtown Reminder" every month !!
   Cancel Suscription
     Stay informed of our news
Round Town Publicity