wsws.org 20 Mar, 2021 02:30 am

Spain’s PSOE-Podemos government unveils €11 billion corporate bailout

The handout of billions of euros to Spanish corporations gives the lie to the European bourgeoisie’s absurd claim that “there is no money” to fund a shelter-at-home policy.

This bailout will follow the same pattern as the €10 billion fund the PSOE-Podemos government set up last July to rescue companies considered “strategically important.While the PSOE-Podemos government claims that the bailout programme is intended primarily to assist self-employed workers and SMEs, larger businesses will receive the lion’s share of the bailout.In an attempt to give the legislation a progressive gloss, the PSOE-Podemos government also included a clause imposing the pathetic “conditions” that businesses do not raise executive pay, that they are up to date with their tax filings and that they do not operate in tax havens.Instead of making funding available to allow workers to stay at home on full pay and providing the necessary investment into health care infrastructure and personnel, the PSOE-Podemos government has pursued a herd immunity policy in all but name.

The final strand of the €11-billion bailout plan will see €7 billion transferred to “small and medium-sized enterprises” (SMEs) and self-employed workers in the form of non-refundable direct aid, administered by Spain’s 17 autonomous regional governments.Self-employed workers will only be able to claim a maximum of either €3,000 or €4,000, depending on which taxation system they are under, a pitiful sum which will do little to help the hundreds of thousands of workers who have lost almost all of their income due to the pandemic.

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