A. Rubio
The president of the PP, Pablo Casado, and the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, coincided yesterday in calling for a specific PERTE (Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation) for the Spanish tourism sector, supported by European recovery funds.
Both took part in the Hotusa Explora Forum held yesterday in Madrid, where they took the opportunity to stage a ‘reconciliation’ which, they agreed, was not necessary because “we have had an extraordinary relationship for many years”. Garamendi joked that “perhaps we should do like John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and receive the media for a week in a hotel room so that they can see that the relationship is like this”.
During their conversation, moderated by the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Josep Piqué, both the PP president and the president of CEOE advocated the immediate implementation of measures to recover a sector that, according to Garamendi, “is much more powerful than the 12 or 14% of the economy that we so often talk about, it is a macro-sector that affects all areas of our economy”.
Casado summarised his proposals for the recovery of the sector in six measures: “lower taxation, labour flexibility, less bureaucracy, more training, more competitiveness and legal certainty”.
Garamendi added that “we need an institutionally stable country” and stressed that “we have to work together, as Spain and as Europe”. For the head of the employers’ association, “while respecting their attributions, the differences between the 17 communities” in the management of the pandemic have been crazy, which in his opinion has generated “insecurity with regard to business”.
The CEOE President cited Madrid as an example of how the pandemic has been managed, pointing out that “I like things in the Madrid way, I like taxes in the Madrid way and I also like the way the pandemic has been managed in the Madrid way, without stifling businesses despite the fact that it is a city with a much greater health risk than others with a lower population density. And it has been done well.
Garamendi called for “businesses not to be seen as enemies, but as friends“, when he referred to public-private collaboration, and gave as an example that the hotel sector took a step forward to help when it was asked to collaborate in housing the Afghan refugees who arrived in Spain last summer.
The forum was opened by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, and the Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez Almeida, who called for the “necessary institutional cooperation, both with the national and regional governments” and underlined the good harmony with the Ministry of Tourism. Maroto agreed with the Madrid councillor that 2022 must be the year of the consolidation of the recovery of tourism.
