Former Spanish President Felipe González warned of the importance of “rebuilding the space for democratic coexistence” by promoting “income redistribution that does not increase inequality” and highlighted the “great potential” that Argentina has to position itself on the new world geopolitical map, during his visit to Buenos Aires, convened by the Group of 6.
“We have a sustainability problem, income is increasingly unequal and increasingly concentrated. This requires an intelligent redistribution of income that does not increase the lacerating inequality experienced by the developed and underdeveloped world”González asserted during the press conference he gave this afternoon at the Alvear Palace Hotel in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Recoleta.
The former Spanish president arrived in Buenos Aires invited by the main business organizations gathered in the Group of 6 (G6) to remember the experience of the Moncloa Pacts of 1977, of which he was the protagonist and which consolidated the democratic transition in Spain.
“There is a geopolitical moment of very important changes in which Argentina has to redefine its role”
In this framework, he assured that in the search for agreements “It is not so much a question of finding ‘the center’, but of seeking the centrality on which a true reconstruction of the space of democratic coexistence is based”.
To do this, he recalled that “agreeing does not mean stopping competing or agreeing on everything”, but it does mean agreeing on “democratic rules of coexistence” and “minimum agreements”.
“There is a crisis of political parties, the blocs are antagonizing each other and it is believed that the one who shouts the most prevails, but those shouts do not let people hear what is happening to the standing citizen. We must try to use words not as daggers but as a mechanism of communication with the other,” warned the former secretary general of the Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE).
The former Spanish president spoke for more than an hour and a half in front of an audience made up of leading figures from the political sphere -both from the ruling party and the opposition- as well as from the business and trade union sectors.
On the part of the ruling party, the presence of the Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers, Juan Manzur; the Minister of the Interior, Eduardo de Pedro; the head of the AFI, Agustín Rossi and the president of Banco Nación, Silvina Batakis, among others.
Meanwhile, Mario Negri, Facundo Manes, Humberto Schiavoni, Luis Naidenoff, Martin Lousteau and Ernesto Sanz were among the leaders of the opposition space grouped together in Together for Change (JxC).
From the business sector, the presidents of the entities that make up the G6 -promoter of this meeting- attended Carlos Weiss of the Argentine Chamber of Construction; Nicolás Pino, from the Argentine Rural Society; Javier Bolsico from the Association of Argentine Banks; Adelmo Gabbi, from the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange; Daniel Funes de Rioja, from the Argentine Industrial Union, and Eduardo Eurnekian, representing the Argentine Chamber of Commerce.
Meanwhile, from the trade union arch, the presences of Hector Daer, Hugo Moyano and Armando Cavalieri stood out.
“There is a crisis of political parties, the blocs are antagonizing each other and it is believed that the one who shouts the most prevails, but those shouts do not let people hear what is happening to the standing citizen. We must try to use words not as daggers but as a mechanism of communication with the other
In another section of his presentation, González pointed out that today on a global scale there is “a time of change never seen before” and that “not even the cold war was so complex,” referring to the geopolitical rearrangement resulting from the aftermath left by the pandemic. of Covid and the consequences of the current war between Russia and Ukraine.
“There is a geopolitical moment of very important changes in which Argentina has to redefine its role,” warned the Spanish politician and added that “whoever governs, it is essential to generate minimum consensus and define a course.”
He also considered that the role of the State is “irreplaceable” and called for promoting “an agile and flexible state that responds to needs with public policies that reach those who need them.”
“There is contempt for the State that does not correspond to the times we live in. The pandemic left it exposed, everyone was looking to see who was rescuing the companies, and that was the State”Gonzalez completed.
At the end of his presentation, González insisted, in statements to the press, that for Argentina “it would be much better to go together even if it were averaging the positions” and that “great agreements always come out of great crises.”
At the end of the meeting, Manzur told Télam that “Felipe González’s presentation was brilliant” and described him as “a man with a long history and enormous experience who has left us a fantastic message about the search for agreements and dialogue as basis of social peace and development”.
For his part, De Pedro stressed that “González sees that Argentina has potential and in that sense he invited us to think about agreements on how we are going to maintain a productive model and above all, he stressed the need for redistribution.”
“Among many valuable concepts, it is worth noting that economic growth cannot be conceived without redistribution. González again demolished the spillover theory, which has been empirically proven not to work,” said Agustín Rossi.
Deputy Negri said that he shares the challenge he poses about “generating consensus at a time when the country is stuck and regardless of whether or not it is in the electoral stage because that ends up staining everything.”
Meanwhile, the president of the SRA pointed out: “We need a lower percentage of poverty, an inflation rate with which we can live and that we want everyone to do better.”
The referents present today “have in some way a commitment and responsibility to sit at a table”, which involves “politicians, businessmen and trade unionists”, he emphasized.
