National
Little agreement on the first day of the debate to invest José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as Prime Minister
By h.b.
Apr 8, 2008 - 7:06 PM

The acting Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, on the first day of his investiture debate in Congress today, has admitted that there are problems in the economy and announced urgent measures to fight these, which he said he would apply in the first week of his government, although he again repeated the claim that Spain was in a ‘good position’ to face the slowdown.

The measures include the famous 400 € tax rebate for income tax payers, pensioners and the self employed, reductions in VAT payments for companies and concrete measures to help the construction industry, with tax breaks, more public works, the reform of buildings and the relocation of construction workers into other areas. Zapatero insisted that the slow down would not affect his government’s social provisions where he said there would be no cut back.

Repeating the phrase ‘My idea of Spain’, Zapatero said that controlled immigration was an opportunity for Spain and that no citizen of the country would lose out on any rights or social help because of an immigrant’s arrival. Education and health services would be redoubled to meet the increased demand.

Zapatero spoke of his plans to modernise the judiciary which he said he hoped would not become a party political battlefield. He said he wanted to see a more agile, accessible and transparent justice system in Spain. He also made an allusion to the case of the Huelva five year old, Mari Luz Cortés, saying that reform should stop such ‘tragic errors’ from ever happening again.

He also spoke of foreign policy with Spain taking the EU Presidency in the first half of 2010, and of the reform of the funding of the regions. He wanted an agreement with both unions and employers to stimulate the economy and productivity and to assure wage equality between men and women, reduce accidents in the workplace and guarantee the sustainability of the social services.

Zapatero spent less time than expected, just two minutes on ETA, as he called for the support from all the groups in the chamber to ‘design a shared anti-terrorist policy’, and made a personal appeal to the leader of the Partido Popular for the same at the end of his speech.

Mariano Rajoy talking to Ángel Acebes in Congress today - Photo EFE

Mariano Rajoy was not impressed however and began his response by clearing up any misunderstanding that the PP would vote against Zapatero’s investiture, despite promising to abstain during the election campaign.

He said that he did see ‘corrections’ in the acting Prime Minister’s words, and he called for pacts in priority areas with the Partido Popular. However he saw the economic measures announced by Zapatero as being ‘patches’, accusing him of being ‘deliberately obscure and imprecise. Rajoy mixed his message, saying that the Zapatero seemed to have repented for some of his mistakes and willing to make amends, but then saying that he showed a worrying obstinacy in continuing on the same route of repeating errors.

Rajoy said he felt a deep lack of confidence in Zapatero’s political programme, and that his speech had done nothing to correct that. He also accused Zapatero of delaying the National Water Plan, and of putting ‘practically nothing’ in its place and that after his four years the water reserves were ‘worse than ever’.