The government delegate in Cantabria, Ainoa Quiñones, has highlighted “the unprecedented social shield in democracy” promoted by the Government of Spain to achieve a “fair and equitable” economic and social recovery and, to this end, has adopted measures to “help those who need it most and the most vulnerable, and also the working class.”
Quiñones has praised it this Tuesday at a press conference in which he has taken stock of the main measures of that “social shield” with which the Executive ensures to “protect the social majority” in the “difficult times” that it has had to manage, with the “worst pandemic in the last hundred years, the eruption of a volcano on the island of La Palma and the outbreak of a war in Ukraine after the Russian invasion and which lasts more than a year”.
Faced with all this, the Government delegate has claimed the measures promoted by the Government “to reduce the inequality gap”, such as the increase of pensions and the Interprofessional Minimum Wage, the implementation of the Minimum Vital Income or the “historical” investment in scholarships.
Thus, Quiñones pointed out that “150,000 Cantabrians and Cantabrians, specifically 144,277 have benefited from the revaluation of pensions” and, of these, in 2023 a total of 90,302 retired people in Cantabria benefit from increases of 8.5% to contributory pensions and 15% to non-contributory ones.
“This is about 100 euros more on average in 14 payments that helps our pensioners a lot in these times of price rises for example of food because it allows them to make at least one more purchase per month”, added the delegate, who has detailed that the average pension in Cantabria, taking into account all types of pensions, is 1,256 euros and the average retirement pension is 1,456.09 euros, which is almost 277 euros more than in 2018.
For Quiñones, “this is a clear sign that we have a government committed to the welfare of the social majority”, for which it has promoted “another historical measure such as the implementation in this legislature of a new benefit, the Minimum Vital Income”.
This new right of citizenship currently reaches 6,055 households in Cantabria with 15,748 people, of which more than 40% are minors (6,530). In addition, 3,213 of these households also receive a specific child support supplement.
“The Minimum Vital Income is the most ambitious policy that has been implemented by the Government of Spain to end situations of severe poverty and achieve the full integration of people in situations of social exclusion,” he said.
Another measure of this “social shield” is the electric and thermal social bond from which 14,363 people benefit in Cantabria. “We are talking about a discount on the electricity bill and the gas bill for consumers qualified as vulnerable and for large families,” he said.
21.000 CANTABRIANS BENEFITED FROM THE LAST SMI RISE
In addition, the delegate of the Government pointed out that this Government of Spain has promoted other measures that benefit the social majority of this country such as the successive increases in the Interprofessional Minimum Wage, the last one to 1,080 euros and applied since last February and that benefits 21,000 Cantabrian workers, which represents 12.3% of the total number of full-time employees.
“In addition to the minimum wage, the Government has promoted indefinite contracts in the labor market, which in January 2023 already reached 56,010 in Cantabria compared to 16,432 in 2019, which is 240.9% more,” said Quiñones, who praised that many of the new indefinite contracts are produced in sectors with high added value.
At this point, Quiñones has pointed to another “sample of the labor market such as affiliation to Social Security, which in February this year has 221,279 affiliates compared to 207,449 in the same month of 2018. There are 13,830 more affiliates.”
Continuing with other measures, he stressed that aid has also been implemented for lower incomes such as “the cheque of 200 euros for incomes below 27,000 euros and that can still be requested until Friday, March 31”. In Cantabria, 25,458 applications have already been made, he has detailed.
In the same vein, he emphasized that “the Government of Spain is making an unprecedented bet for scholarships to study”. Currently in Cantabria, 8,708 university students and other educational levels are awarded scholarships, with an investment of 16.49 million euros.
Specifically, 2,999 are university students (2,548 from the University of Cantabria and 451 from the European University of the Atlantic), to whose scholarships the Ministry allocates 6.22 million, while 5,709 are students from other educational levels and their scholarships amount to 10.27 million euros.
“For the next academic year 2023-2024, the Government of Spain has approved a historic investment in scholarships that will reach 2.25 billion euros, which is 70% more than the last batch of scholarships of the previous government,” he said.
The implementation of the Cultural Bond to promote the consumption of culture among young people is another social measure of this Government, Quiñones has claimed, which recalled that, in its first edition, that of 2022, it was requested by 3,249 young Cantabrians.
“That is, more than 58% of those who were entitled to it. With these bonds, which as you know amount to 400 euros to spend on different cultural products, 7,442 operations have already been carried out in the amount of 290,354 euros until the end of February,” he said.
Among other measures, the delegate recalled that the Government has implemented subsidies for municipal and regional buses for 30% of the ticket, in collaboration with municipalities and regional government that subsidizes another 20%.
In this commitment to promote the use of public transport, the transport subscriptions for trains have also been launched, and in Cantabria they amount to 26,364, 25,458 of neighbourhoods and 906 of medium distance.
Other subsidies are those granted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to alleviate the consequences of the war in the primary sector before the rise in fuel or feed prices. In the case of Cantabria, 1,025 farmers have received 9.69 million euros.
“In short, this is a package of measures that constitute a true social shield to protect those who need it most, the most vulnerable, and that has been promoted as never before in this country with the aim of leaving no one behind,” insisted the Government delegate.
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RECOVERY PLAN IN CANTABRIA
On the other hand, Quiñones has indicated that many of “those reforms are possible thanks to the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan in which investments such as these reforms are so important”. Specifically, in Cantabria, 518 million euros of the Plan are in execution, 166 by agencies of the General Administration of the State and 352 by the regional government.
“The Plan is the best example of the co-governance vocation of the Government of Spain”, said the delegate, who detailed that the State executes in Cantabria about 2,250 projects with those 166 million, of which more than 70 are dedicated to transformative projects, such as the 25 million euros that are being dedicated to the improvement of tunnels of the State Road Network.
He also stressed that “Cantabria has an active participation in the program of complementary plans of the Ministry of Science and Innovation” and that entities of Cantabria have obtained more than 12.5 million euros to develop research and innovation projects, highlighting the more than 1.6 million that the Hospital Marqués de Valdecilla has obtained to investigate in precision medicine and the diagnosis and treatment of childhood diseases.