VALENCIA. The mayor of València, Joan Ribó, has claimed that the City Council can freely spend the remainder of 2019 to face the Covid-19 crisis, and has made a defense of the municipal economic management, “which has allowed it to decrease to less than the last five years Half the debt we inherited, and having a surplus in our accounts. The central government cannot now try to take away that surplus from us. “
This is one of the proposals made by the first mayor for the exit of this crisis in the meeting that he held by videoconference with the mayors of the 15 most populous cities in Spain, (Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Zaragoza, Malaga , Murcia, Palma, Las Palmas, Bilbao, Alicante, Córdoba, Valladolid, Vigo and Gijón) to “promote extraordinary local measures that boost the social and economic response of cities in the process of de-escalation of the Covid-19 crisis” , as reported by the consistory in a statement.
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At the request of the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, to “collect all the surpluses from local corporations to face liquidity problems” caused by Covid-19, Joan Ribó has defended “local autonomy” and has recalled that it is “a principle that marks the Constitution and the municipalities demand that the State Government strictly comply.”
The mayor has pointed out as “the first fundamental aspect, that more than a proposal is a requirement, that the funds from the remainder of 2019 can be freely spent by the City of Valencia, especially in matters related to the alarm caused by the coronavirus pandemic and he has asked Montero to “renounce any act in the sense that the remainder of 2019 can be used in any other way than for the freedom that the City Council has to work with these resources that are their own, which are from the Valencians and the Valencians “.
As Ribó has indicated, “in the last legislature,” I had to demonstrate as mayor before the Finance Minister, Luis Montoro “, and” I would not want in this legislature to have to demonstrate again, therefore, now before María Jesús Montero ” .
EMT program contract
On the contrary, Joan Ribó has asked for “the support of the Government to the City Councils to face the drop in income of all municipal transport companies, and that in Valencia it drags discrimination for not having a contract-program like the one they have the rest of metropolitan areas, like Madrid and Barcelona. ” As he said, “for Valencia the way out of this crisis is through the rescue of vulnerable families, economic revitalization, and sustainability and public health.”
Thus, the first mayor has asked that València, “like other cities that do not have a public transport contract-program, may have state support to face the drop of more than 90 percent of income” as a result of the crisis.
In addition, he has claimed a “determined commitment to social welfare”: “We all have to get out of the pandemic, and we have to do it together; we don’t have to do as in the past crisis when the majority became impoverished.” For this reason, he has advocated “going out all at once on the path of sustainability, which implies a determined commitment, as Europe tells us, for renewable energies and for the rehabilitation of homes, so that, ultimately, we can get closer increasingly to sustainable development. “
Meeting with the Chamber of Commerce
On the other hand, the mayor of Valencia, Joan Ribó, has also met by videoconference with the president of the Valencia Chamber of Commerce, José Vicente Morata, to address the need to collaborate on the plans of the City Council to support local commerce of the city, as reported in separate statements.
The Mayor of Valencia has asked the Chamber for support for the digitization of commercial SMEs and explained the measures implemented by the City Council to help mitigate the consequences of the Covid-19 economic crisis. Likewise, Joan Ribó has expressly highlighted the need “to support local commerce, which is the one that generates the most work, of the highest quality, and which serves as a catalyst for our neighborhoods.”
Among other actions for reconstruction, the president of the Chamber has proposed the implementation of a Renove plan for commerce, a fund aimed at financing commercial renovation and modernization, as well as the launch of campaigns to stimulate the consumption and reinforcement of aid for the self-employed.
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