Junts has communicated this Thursday that it will support in Congress the decree law of tax aids promoted by the Government to mitigate the impact of the escalation of energy prices derived from the conflict in the Middle East. With this support, added to that of the other parliamentary partners, the Executive has guaranteed the validation of the decree.
The Government had already pushed forward a first package of measures to address the consequences of the war that began in Iran, focused mainly on the increase in hydrocarbon prices. However, that decree law had a limited temporal scope and several of its provisions ceased to apply at the end of June.
The prolongation of the conflict and the new pressures on energy prices led the Executive to approve a second block of tax reductions. As happens with all decree laws, the measures came into effect from their approval in the Council of Ministers on June 29, but it remained pending for Congress to decide whether to validate or reject them.
During the debate session, the Compromís deputy integrated into the Mixed Group, Águeda Micó; as well as UPN, Coalición Canaria, Podemos, PNV, EH Bildu, and Esquerra Republicana have also advanced their favorable vote for the validation of the text.
In his speech, the Junts deputy Josep Maria Cruset criticized the Government for the new decree not maintaining the VAT reduction on electricity during a period of higher energy demand due to summer, and he criticized that the set of measures seems "insufficient" to him.
Nevertheless, he admitted that the decree incorporates proposals that Junts already raised in the first package "to help the middle and working class of Catalonia" and that were finally accepted. "It is a decree that contains the proposals that we from Junts already made in its previous version and that led us to facilitate its approval," the parliamentarian recalled.
Sources from the post-convergent formation have later confirmed that their group will vote in favor of the decree, so that, along with the support of the other parties in the investiture block, its validation in the Lower House will be assured.
Details of the new tax aids
Among the measures of this new package is the reduction of the special tax on hydrocarbons, which will translate into a decrease of 15 cents per liter in July, 10 cents in August, and 5 cents in September. Despite this relief, the application of the reduced VAT at 10% on fuels, which was contemplated in the first anti-crisis decree, disappears, following the recommendations conveyed by Brussels.
The Government has also incorporated an automatic clause that would allow for the recovery of support of 20 cents per liter if the war intensifies and fuel inflation skyrockets again.
In the same way, the Executive has committed to reviewing monthly, continuously, the evolution regarding the CPI of the previous year and, if variations are detected that place it above 15%, the reductions in both the electricity bill and the gas bill will be reactivated, depending on that indicator. In summary, this reactivation clause will apply to diesel, gasoline, gas, and electricity.