The leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, has proposed that parties agree on a team of prestigious experts in the Department of Education, in infrastructure and other areas, guarantee necessary budget allocations, support them “eight or 12 years” regardless of who governs, and considers it essential to give a voice to social and economic agents. In an interview with Europa Press, he assured that it is about giving “stability and tranquility” to sectors such as education and guaranteeing a long-term trajectory. Junqueras argued that this requires “major agreements beyond the parties,” agreeing on priorities, their timeline, and their budget, and added that it does not have to be done this year or this legislature.
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“This can be agreed upon, and it is not necessary to always be changing the Education teams, resulting in three different ministers every five years,” he said. The fact of guaranteeing them budget allocations, according to Junqueras, should translate into a commitment to allocate a certain percentage in the Budgets to the affected sectors and, if they cannot be approved, that there be credit extension decrees to provide them with resources. “It should be common. Unfortunately, for a long time, another way of doing politics has been imposed throughout the world, which is reproach, contempt,” he said, lamenting the current presidency of the United States as the main example.
With an appeal for the agreement to be as broad as possible, the republican believes that economic and social agents should also be able to participate and involve prestigious experts from different fields who generate “a minimum trust among all parties.” Beyond education, he believes that this proposal can be applied to other areas, such as infrastructure, where he argues that the priority is to resolve the maintenance of the current railway network and to build kilometers of conventional train; energy, where he advocates for renewables, and housing.
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“There can be a great country agreement on energy, on railways, on housing or on education. Let’s work on it,” he demanded. In addition, he stressed the importance of addressing other possible agreements on forest management or incomes to improve the purchasing power of families, for example with a salary increase. He also argued that action must be taken on housing because it has ended up becoming “an element sometimes more decisive than the salary itself to understand a family’s purchasing power.”
In this field, he proposes working on the idea that the administration’s collection of 10% of the Property Transfer Tax (ITP) be fractionalized over time to help families: “For the family that buys, it’s 10% that they don’t have to put down upfront.”
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