The Partido Popular candidate for the Congress for Huesca, Ana Alós, has defended this Saturday in Barbastro the importance of self-employed workers and small shops in the economy and in the everyday life of the towns. "We want to free self-employed workers from the obstacles that are choking them every day," she said.
She conveyed the message in the Plaza del Mercado, coinciding with the usual Saturday market for fruit and vegetables, surrounded by the president of Aragón and of the PP, Jorge Azcón, the provincial party president, Isaac Claver, the mayor of Barbastro, Fernando Torres, and the rest of the candidates for the Congress and the Senate for Huesca, including the woman from Barbastro Blanca Galindo.
Alós has wanted to highlight the role of those who every day "raise the shop shutter to provide service to our country." She has stressed that in Barbastro there are close to 700 registered establishments and that almost half exceed a decade of activity. Behind these businesses are shopkeepers, hoteliers, hairdressers, plumbers, electricians and many other trades that shape the city’s daily life.
The popular representative has denounced that in recent years self-employed workers "have been suffocated, pressured and persecuted by the Government of Pedro Sánchez." In her view, they have had to assume a higher tax burden and an increasing bureaucracy that complicates their day-to-day life. "They have been considered almost enemies of society when really they are a kind to be protected," she criticized.
Measures to reduce taxes and bureaucracy
Given this situation, Alós has concentrated the Partido Popular proposal into a single idea: "Liberarlos". To liberate them from taxes, from administrative procedures and from obstacles which, as she indicated, make it very difficult to carry forward a business project.
In this regard, she has detailed several of the initiatives included in the PP’s electoral program. New self-employed workers would be exempt from paying the Social Security contribution during the first year and also the second if their earnings do not reach the minimum wage. Likewise, those who earn less than 85,000 euros per year would not be required to pass on or declare VAT.
As she pointed out, this measure would allow small businesses "to lower prices to be more competitive" or to have a greater margin to withstand the increase in costs.
Alós has also referred to the problems faced by self-employed workers when they try to grow and hire staff. The PP proposes to give a 100% bonus on employers’ social security contributions for the first employee for one year and 50% on those for the second worker.
It also proposes strengthening protection in the event of serious illness, with the bonus on the fee from the first day of sick leave, so that self-employed workers are not forced to choose between prioritizing their health or continuing their activity.
The popular candidate has concluded by claiming the contribution of these professionals to society as a whole, beyond the mere generation of wealth. "Without them, the streets would be deserted; we would have nothing of what we enjoy every day at this moment," she said. For this reason, she has stressed that administrations must recognize their effort and make their work easier, instead of adding new obstacles to those who are trying to keep their businesses open.