Covid-19: despite the emergency, the Spanish government fails to set its budget

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, August 25, 2020 in Madrid.

Juan Medina / Reuters

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

Spain is a very fragile country today, where health issues are mixed with political and financial problems.

While it deplores more than half a million cases of Covid-19 as of September 7, the power in place - in this case, the Socialists led by Pedro Sanchez - fails to impose the vote of the annual budget.

A decisive objective for, in particular, being able to benefit from the European economic aid provided for in the face of the pandemic.

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With our correspondent in Madrid,

It has been three years since the Spanish government failed to get a budget passed.

This problematic situation is even more serious in this parliamentary re-entry, because entire sectors of the economy - health, education, culture, construction - are in considerable need of additional money, since the

has made them much more vulnerable.

The country also urgently needs a budget to be able to benefit from

, in the form of loans or lost funds, of the order of 140 billion euros.

► To read also: Coronavirus: faced with the increase in contaminations, Spain once again mobilizes the army

The increasingly worrying health situation

To tie up its budget, the socialist government must bring together liberals and left-wing radicals of Podemos, opposed on the question of raising or lowering taxes.

Meanwhile, the health situation is more and more worrying with half a million cases of coronavirus recorded in the country as of September 7.

The bar has risen to 230 cases per 100,000 inhabitants for the past two weeks, with a peak in particular in the capital Madrid, where there are 20,000 new positive cases in a single week.

The health situation further weakens the economy.

Hence the even more glaring need for a new budget, which is not yet on the horizon.

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• Spain

• Coronavirus

• Economy

• Economic crisis

• Health and medicine

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