The head of EH Bildu’s list to the Congress for Navarre, Eneka Maiz, has defended the creation of its own Interprofessional Minimum Wage (SMI) for the foral Community and that large companies in the energy and food sectors assume the impact of the rising cost of living thanks to their “enormous profit margins”.
Maiz made these remarks at an event held in front of the market of Santo Domingo, in Pamplona, coinciding with the start of the campaign for the general elections on 29 November. There she stressed that the increase in prices is “growing ever greater in the shopping basket, in the gas bill, in the electricity bill, or in fuels in general, an increase that puts many families in a bind that cannot make ends meet”. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to make ends meet and to resolve all of these problems,” she assured.
Insisting on this idea, the candidate reiterated that “everything is rising, except wages”. “In EH Bildu we are very aware of this. That is why we commit to working with ambition and responsibility to address this whole situation. We advocate rebalancing the scale in favor of workers and families, by increasing wages and improving working conditions,” she said.
Within this framework, Maiz outlined two proposals. First, to set “our own SMI, tailored to our cost of living and to our circumstances here in Navarre”. Second, “to make the large companies in the energy and food sectors assume the increase in costs with those enormous profit margins”.
The EH Bildu representative emphasized that “on 29 November we have a lot at stake as well, also making it possible for wages to be decent and for lives to be affordable, so that all of us can live decently”. “We will make it possible,” she concluded.