It is not necessary for the Center for Sociological Research to carry out an exhaustive public opinion study to try to find out what most Spaniards expect from the new year. It would be enough to browse the latest Barometers to confirm that the coronavirus situation we are experiencing worries a lot and/or quite a lot more than 90 percent of the population, which is a clear invitation to question the true scope of the new denialism in our country.
Seven out of ten Spaniards are concerned about the negative effects of the coronavirus crisis on the economy and employment, physical health and/or emotional well-being, so it is not difficult to discern where government action should be channeled during 2021. Indeed, the fight against the pandemic should continue as before through three main axes. One is public health, protecting and saving lives; another is the protection of the most vulnerable; and the third is the reactivation of the economy to recover the activity of companies, the self-employed and employment.
Fortunately, the action of our Government for the new year will be supported by unprecedented General State Budgets. These are public accounts that respond to the current crisis by strengthening and protecting the Welfare State, including the largest social spending in history with 239,000 million euros. But they also promote solid, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, which promotes R&D&I to improve the competitiveness of companies.
Together with scientific advances and the mass vaccination of the population, the General State Budgets for next year will become the engine of the social and economic reconstruction of our country. That is not all, because, at the same time, they will lay the foundations for the transformation of the productive model by contemplating some 27,000 million European funds that will allow progress in the energy transition, digitization, social and territorial cohesion and equality.
Hopefully 2021 will be a predictable year and we can take a giant step in the health fight against covid-19 and its devastating economic and social effects, although it would not hurt to expect something more. We are the majority who ask the new year for a responsible and useful opposition without neglecting the exercise of oversight and control of the Government that corresponds to it. Both things are possible. I also believe that we are the majority who ask 2021 for greater international solidarity and among Autonomous Communities, so that legitimate territorial aspirations and constitutional changes are put aside until we overcome the pandemic.
Asking for things, many of us wish that politics, politicians and parties would stop being considered as one of the main problems of this country. But, to achieve this, it is necessary to reach great state pacts that are an example of consensus and generosity, and, for that, you have to have will. As you have to have it so that the leaders of political organizations emancipate themselves from the tension, from the no for the no and from the you more. And that, in the next elections, the people who decide to vote do so for the best option or person, and not for the least bad.
Fco. Manuel Fajardo Palarea, PSOE senator for Lanzarote and La Graciosa.
