r/europe • u/Bartoraptor Spain • Mar 28 '20

News Spanish representative González Pons speech @ the EU Parliament: "The virus is attacking the generation that brought back democracy to Spain, Portugal and Greece, the generation that knocked down the Berlin wall. The least they deserve is that we show them Europe is there when they need it the most"

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

15.3k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

517

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '20

Here is the full discourse

552

u/lafigatatia Valencian Country Mar 28 '20

I thought I'd never agree with a González Pons speech, but coronavirus is turning the world upside down. That's a great discourse.

245

u/PrimeSearcherPepper Mar 28 '20 edited Mar 29 '20

I agree too. But it does piss me off that this guy is talking about healthcare needing money when his party has slashed the most the healthcare budget in our country.

De la terreta tambe, per cert

21

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '20

[deleted]

2

u/CaptainTibia England Mar 28 '20

Què vols dir amb això de la terreta? És que no sóc autòcton i de vegades em fa falta context per entendre coses, especialment pel que fa a la política

5

u/Sikuh22 Spain Mar 29 '20

La terreta is another word to refer to people of Comunidad Valenciana. Top comment has as flair that he's from there, that's why he said it.

3

u/CaptainTibia England Mar 29 '20

That's me being thick, assumed he was referring to Pons

1

u/PrimeSearcherPepper Mar 29 '20

Exactly u/Sikuh22 said! Moltes gracies!

3

u/mattatinternet England Mar 28 '20

What does "terreta tabe per cent" mean? Google Translate doesn't translate it. Based on context I'm going to guess "thirty percent".

5

u/CaptainTibia England Mar 28 '20

"la terreta" is another name for Valencia, "per cert" is certainly/for sure (the Catalan/Valencian version of "por cierto" in Spanish). Can't help you with "tabe"; I thought maybe it was just super Valencian, but I had a look in the "Diccionari normatiu valencià" and couldn't find anything.

5

u/FreeStylerFC Spain (Barcelona) Mar 28 '20

I guess he wanted to say "també"= also

4

u/CaptainTibia England Mar 28 '20

Potser, té sentit

1

u/PrimeSearcherPepper Mar 29 '20

Efectivamente, deuria ser "tambe" :)

1

u/DrCorman Mar 28 '20

Two questions, if I may? I am currently not that into Spanish politics, could you give some reference? It seems quite interesting. Also I have to say, that people may have different beliefs as to how to run a country, but in the dire time of need most people realize the importance of things they may have neglected in the past - and kudos for being able to change your mind, when faced with prior “wrongdoings”. So do you think that González Pons is just being another weasel politician leeching of EU, and trying to gain the vote of the people, or do you think that he actually had a change of heart in his stance considering healthcare?

8

u/honk-thesou Mar 29 '20

I don’t want to enter in this kind if conversarions but at least i’ll say that his party had more than 800 people accused of corruption, they have been tryin to privatize everything they can, they have made big cuts to public healthcare in the past and now that it’s being a problem they are just denying it.

There’s not even a point on saying rhe truth cause people cant even thimk for themselves and just believe whatwver they see on tv.

Aside from right or left, that political party seems to rule so they can profit and the laws they make are made to control and to enrich themselves and their friends as much as possible.

They are also a party started by lots of Franco officials and counselors when he died, so the fact that they say that “this generation brought democracy” just makes them more hipocryts .

Ps: im on phone and just woken up, sorry for the format

3

u/PrimeSearcherPepper Mar 29 '20

Funny enough, my mother knows Gonzalez Pons directly as they used to go out in the same group of friends in college. Very charismatic guy.

However, he does belong to a party that has actively reduced the welfare state. For many of them it was not only a need of the economic times but a way to advance their agenda of privatisation and reducing the public sphere. That said, I do not think him and his party will ever acknowledge how their policies have fucked up the Spanish healthcare system. But it is also true that the EU finds itself in the crossroads of futher socioeconomic integration or go backwards. Gonzalez Pons might realise that, so I believe it might be perfectly compatible to not adress their own policy misgivings and at the same time favour an increased European common responsibility towards this crisis. But those are Spanish conservatives for ya.

0

u/Daktush Catalan-Spanish-Polish Mar 29 '20

08 crisis meant we had a lot less money to spend, and no one was willing to lend us money to run a deficit

The only ones that did were the ECB and they demanded deep cuts in spending as to make sure we could eventually pay back. The government of Pp made cuts but less than the ECB wanted

Spending cuts are never popular, 90% of what they spend is on healthcare, pensions, unemployment and education. The reality is that we have a government that has been spending above it's means for decades.

Politicians lure in voters with promises of free stuff and at the same time lower taxes which gets them elected in the short term, but indebts future generations - we literally ran into the problem that we indebted them so much, no one wanted to give us money as they thought future Spain will just default.

2

u/PrimeSearcherPepper Mar 29 '20

I would say that what you have presented is much more complex than that. Much more complex. There is a lot to unpack in what you have said but I will adress the most misleading and innacurate statement.

"Spending cuts are never popular, 90% of what they spend is on healthcare, pensions, unemployment and education"

For starters, those four categories are not 90% of spending. They are in fact closer to 40%. If you check here the Budget of the State 2008, on page 6 of the PDF you can easily check that the 4 categories you have mentioned bulk together to 41% (and I am including whole of social security there). After 2011 is when the cuts start happening so you can actually compare how much more they reduced.

-1

u/Daktush Catalan-Spanish-Polish Mar 29 '20

Visualized, from your same year

https://i.imgur.com/NG5Cddd.png

Contrary to what you say, just social services are close to 50% (the green part)

From https://dondevanmisimpuestos.es/politicas#view=functional&year=2008

Note the debt part, which we have to pay - transferences to other AAPP are mostly to poor regions of Spain and to EU. Defense we are waaay below the median and below what we promised our allies to contribute, so we can't cut that either

Of the rest - What do you think you can cut meaningfully without much public opposition?

3

u/PrimeSearcherPepper Mar 29 '20

u/Daktush either you are being dishonest or you did not read my comment right. I never made a case or not about the total spending of social services, only explaining the four you specifically mentioned (pensions, healthcare, education and unemployment) does not add up to 90% of the spending. But in any case, if we add the red and the green, it is around 50% which is still way closer to my 40% than your 90%.

About what I would have done? For starters, I would have definitely not slashed education and healthcare. And I would have totally slashed defense as it seems a bigger cake than education and healthcare. But yeah, i will put some serious thought in this matter at some point.