The platform led by Yolanda Díaz presented this Thursday its electoral program for the next general elections on July 23, in which the economy plays a fundamental role. Sumar has distributed the set of measures in five points and the economic sphere is the first of these pillars. Among other measures such as reducing the working day, raising personal income tax for the highest incomes or regulating deposits, the left-wing coalition has proposed the creation of an Investment Bank for the New Economy (BINE). This would bring together other organizations that already exist, such as ICO, COFIDES, CDTI, and ENISA, with the aim of channeling financing for projects in strategic sectors such as renewable energy, the construction of public housing or its rehabilitation.
The team headed by Nacho Álvarez, economic spokesman for Sumar, and Carlos Martín, CCOO economist and number six for Madrid on the list for the Congress of Deputies, has conceived this initiative as part of a broader strategy that seeks to focus industrial policy in the energy transition and job creation. For this reason, sources close to the party leadership point to small and medium-sized companies in charge of manufacturing solar panels for the production of photovoltaic energy or components of electric vehicles as possible beneficiaries. Since, according to the text made public this Thursday, the BINE is designed to “channel the necessary resources to finance innovative and sustainable projects (…) in order to improve the competitiveness and economic development of the country.”
However, the platform led by the current second vice president of the Government and Minister of Labor and Social Economy also wants to use this “public investment entity” to finance the public housing stock that they aspire to increase to two million residences throughout the next legislature, which they estimate will cost close to 1% of GDP. Sumar also wants to lead the investment, through this public bank, the rehabilitation of 500,000 homes a year with the aim of making them more efficient. The area coordinated by Alejandra Jacinto aspires to reduce household energy demand by 50%, to save an average of 400 euros per year on energy bills, thanks to taking care of thermal insulation and installing efficient heating, cooling and hot water systems .
A picture of the German Development Bank KfW
The BINE takes as its model the German Kredintanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), known as the Development Bank, therefore, it aspires to focus both public and private investment. Sumar believes that it is appropriate for the State to take a more active role in the economic sectors that it deems most interesting for the modernization of the economy, that is, strategic, and that it also do so hand in hand with small-sized companies, the majority in the country and those that often find it more difficult to find these financing channels.
In addition to the integration of the Official Credit Institute (ICO), which now depends on the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Spanish Development Financing Company (COFIDES) and the National Innovation Company (Enisa) that depend on the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, and the Center for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI), now dependent on the Ministry of Science and Innovation, Sumar aspires to carry out a “simplification and improvement of the state public financial architecture” to improve efficiency, scope and increase ar the resources available from these agencies.
Increase in the average size of companies
In this commitment to productivity, Sumar believes that it is essential to increase the average size of companies, which is why he advocates that the left focus on competition – an area traditionally relegated to the right – and that access be favored of SMEs and the self-employed to public tenders, either through the introduction of specific social clauses or reducing subcontracting to a few exceptions. Although, while this objective is achieved, they are committed to sectoral collaboration, to improve the productivity of individual companies, of the sector and of the territory as a whole.
