With a moderate and pactistic disposition, Antonio Garamendi (Getxo, 1958) is indignant about the pact with Bildu as never before with a government since he assumed the presidency of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE).

Also in his role as Basque who knows what terrorism has been with the businessmen of his land, but in the latter he prefers to bite his tongue and focus on the economy.

His employers have issued a very harsh statement against the Government for the pact with Bildu to repeal the labor reform, is the social dialogue over? The social dialogue is on hold until they explain what there is. When I go to a table I like that the cards are not marked. Here they are. Why do you see them marked? Because this pact is very serious in the current economic situation when what needs to be protected is employment. It creates a serious problem in companies and workers, who do not know now what will become of them. Mixing this with the state of alarm as they have done makes no sense. Is business confidence lost if the labor reform is changed now? Of course and trust is key and for both Spanish and foreign companies looking at Spain. The EU, the OECD, the IMF ... Everyone has said that if something was done well it was thanks to the labor reform and that if not, Spain would not have come out of the previous crisis. This game that they are making in the middle of the coronavirus is very serious. It is that above they are contradicting and now we do not know if the repeal is total or partial. But what is this! The PSOE spokeswoman says that it has been a clarification, but the content does not convince you either, right? No. Neither what the paper says nor the qualification they say, because it leaves out the social agents. Furthermore, the clarification says that they are going to repeal at least parts of the labor reform while the coronavirus is there, it is incredible! And, attention, they have not removed the third point that says to a certain extent that they put as an auditor how this agreement is made to a third party that is EH Bildu. Pretty amazing too. It is also a qualification that only one of the signatories does, because the other two signatories say that what they have signed is what it says and the paper puts what it says. Mr. Pablo Iglesias affirms that he is crystalline. You are Basque, what do you think that the pact is also with Bildu? R.- On the political level, I prefer not to enter. I can say what we all think at CEOE and that is incomprehensible. It was also not necessary, it seems, to achieve the extension of the alarm state. It is outrageous that the government is trafficking the labor market for political purposes by a vote in Parliament of the state of alarm. It just doesn't fit in my head. All this occurs when just ten days ago you went to Moncloa to sign a social agreement with the president, vice president and various ministers. Did they tell you then that they were planning to urgently change the labor reform in this crisis? At no time did they tell me any of this. That agreement was to extend the ERTE, but be careful because this pact they now make with Bildu is irresponsible and leads to removing the T and moving to ERE, because if the companies do not know what the legislation will be in Spain In a few months, the legal insecurity that is generated is total. It hurts all kinds of companies and workers. Is it going to be difficult for you to return to Moncloa with this government to agree something? R.- At the moment it is clear that I will not return like this. This is on hold and many things will have to be clarified for us. Q.- Vice President Nadia Calviño presides over the Social Dialogue Table, has she explained what happened? R.- She has not explained it to me, but for me the Government is one and it is the government that has to say what it is. It doesn't do me any good to be told that it was someone else's thing who was passing by; I insist: the Government is one. What they have done is very worrying for large companies, small and medium and self-employed. For all. People are very angry and very concerned. And when I say very, it is very. This is irresponsible. You have opted for dialogue and pacts and the Prime Minister has praised you for that. Do you feel personally disappointed? The personal part does not matter to me. I owe it to the entrepreneurs in this country and I will do what I have to do. When it was time to agree, I did it. So what shows the anger and that a thousand peoples have passed is precisely that I am a pact and moderate. If I had said no to everything always ... But that was not the case. We could not imagine that social dialogue was going to be blown up by a parliamentary agreement, but there was already another disagreement with Pablo Iglesias and he suspended a meeting on social dialogue ... Yes, but this is much more serious and directly affects the labor market and companies that are suffering. How can this be done with four million people waiting to go back to work! It creates an impressive insecurity for them. If what they want is to change the economic model in Spain, don't count on me for that.

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