Speakers Carlos Corrochano and Paula Moreno during Sumar’s press conference this Thursday, which was attended by Universities Minister Joan Subirats in the front row.LaPresse (LaPresse)
Sumar, the platform for participation in the next parliamentary elections led by Vice President Yolanda Díaz, is entering a new phase. In parallel with the partisan struggle and the negotiations, from this Thursday until June 2, citizens can discuss the conclusions published on the Internet and contribute new proposals to the 35 documents prepared by the project’s working groups. Although the material is voluminous, among the initiatives that the experts involved in the debate are proposing these months are fiscal measures such as turning the wealth tax into a permanent levy on large fortunes, creating a universal legacy to redistribute wealth, reducing the role of parties in certain institutions (election of the President of the CIS or the post office) or the elimination of foreign prisons.
Paula Moreno, an economist and one of the two Sumar spokespersons responsible for presenting this phase of the process, has stressed that the documents under discussion “are not consistent with Sumar’s political program”. At least the final ones, but they will serve as a working basis. There will be proposals that will be definitively withdrawn and new ones that can be added, but always with a “political evaluation of the measures” to avoid dissonance with the ideological line of the project. After each of the ideas is submitted for public scrutiny, Sumar’s team will consolidate the “country project” into a single document to be voted on and then discussed with political parties willing to join a future coalition.
“We are entering a new phase as a political project and as a citizen movement. A phase of democratic participation in which the protagonists must be the proposals,” announced Carlos Corrochano, Díaz’s international political adviser and co-spokesman for the platform, in an act in Madrid without the presence of the vice-president but with the minister at the Universities, Joan Subirats – one of the people involved in the final design – among the public. “From now until the general elections, we need to focus on what matters most: how we solve people’s problems. How to Cope with Drought as Profits Soar for Energy Companies How can we become a country at the forefront of public climate policy and stop being at the forefront of worst impacts? How to continue to advance in public housing stock at an average of 2.5%, far from the 9.3% in Europe. How to create decent job opportunities for young people, shorten the working day, democratize the workplace or update our social protection system,” he outlined some of Sumar’s priorities at the press conference.
“At stake in the next elections is whether we open a progressive decade in which we address urgent challenges such as the ecological emergency or inequalities, or whether we go back and return to that Europe of austerity that the countries of the South and their has subdued citizens,” he summarized.
Suggestions
Measures of all kinds can be found in the 35 documents produced by the working groups. From reducing the right to vote at 16 (a historic Podemos demand) to establishing a universal legacy – in the spirit of Tony Atkinson or Thomas Piketty – for a “fairer distribution of societal wealth”, which would affect the opportunities of the younger population. “According to some calculations, with a wealth/inheritance tax of less than 10%, a general inheritance of around 20,000 euros to be received upon reaching majority could be financed, with habitual residence and assets remaining tax-free up to a million euros. ’, states the Document on Welfare and Social Rights.
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The conclusions of the “Democratic Quality” group advocate the “reduction of partisan power” in certain institutions and consider it “difficult to justify, for example, that the administration of the Post Office, the Paradores Nacionales, the National Library or the Center for Sociological Research (CIS) of depend on changes in power parties”. “This invasive role of the parties in public life is one of the main reasons for the distrust they arouse in the majority of citizens,” criticize the experts. Sumar proposes establishing a new appointments system for these posts, based on “plural and impartial” appointments committees, including for those bodies where qualified parliamentary majorities are required, such as the General Council of the Judiciary, the Constitutional Court, the Audit Office and the Ombudsman.
On the economic front, Sumar believes there is a need to introduce a state-level tax floor on wealth tax and inheritance and gifts, and calls for the former to be permanently transformed into a large wealth tax. In addition, on income tax, she calls for increasing the number of general income brackets in order to improve tax progression by splitting the current bracket between 60,000 and 299,999 euros into several in order to apply “different and increasing” rates.
With regard to migration, the experts advocate the closure of the Immigrant Detention Centers (CIE), the review and reform of the Immigration Law or the demilitarization of an issue which, as they stress, “is social and must be treated with absolute respect for human rights”. Among other things, they also call for the simplification of the system for validating titles and work experience, the promotion of the professional qualification system to improve employability and the provision of a universal health care system.