The Government expands transport aid and creates a single payment for the entire country. It will cost 60 euros per month and 30 euros for those under 26 years of age, as confirmed by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez. Starting in the second half of January, it will be available to users of medium-distance trains, Cercanías and state buses.
“It is a very resounding commitment to sustainable mobility and also to the middle and working class, because this is savings for the pockets of many families in our country,” Sánchez said during the final assessment of the political year before the Christmas holidays.
According to the President of the Government, this single ticket will be available from the second half of January. It will be approved in the last Council of Ministers of the year through a Royal Decree Law in which, in addition, the transport aid that was put in place to face the inflationary crisis caused by the war in Ukraine will be extended.
Expandable to CCAA and town councils
Furthermore, Pedro Sánchez has called on the autonomous communities and city councils to integrate their network into this subscription “facilitating access to public transport throughout the country for all citizens.” This would allow both urban buses and Metro lines, for example, to be incorporated into the single pass. “We hope that all regional and local public transport networks will progressively join,” say sources from the Executive.
The measure, according to the Government, will benefit two million public transport users.
“A worker who travels daily from Vigo to Santiago or from Jerez to Seville will be able to save up to almost 60% of the monthly expenditure on public transport,” said Sánchez during his speech.
Measures implemented in housing
During his speech, Sánchez assumed that the main problem continues to be housing. “We have been consistent, coherent in our commitment to public intervention.” For example, he has pointed out that the Housing Law has allowed 304 municipalities to be declared stressed, “in the four communities that comply with the Housing Law, there are others that do not. These four are using the levers to face the biggest problem, access to housing” while for other regional governments this problem “enters one ear and comes out the other.”
He recalled the creation of the state company Casa 47, “to recover the houses that we should never have lost” with “40,000 homes and nearly 2,400 lands, from that bad bank that was approved in the previous legislature, from the banks that were rescued,” in reference to Sareb, “which will house 55,000 homes.”
He also recalled that 54,000 homes for illegal tourist use have been “removed from the market” to “make the cities more livable.” “We must call things by their name and not allow illegal use,” he summarized.
The good performance of the economy does not reach everyone
On the other hand, the President of the Government has also recognized that the good progress of the macroeconomy is not translating, 100%, into an improvement in the daily lives of all citizens.
“For some who have already written what will be the balance of this year and the semester, these fantastic macroeconomic data will be insufficient and they will say that all these macro results are not reflected in the micro, that is, in the daily lives of citizens. I am convinced that there is part of the reason in this,” Sánchez said.
In this sense, the Chief Executive has assessed that the real disposable income of households, discounting inflation, has increased by 10% in seven years and the average salary has increased by 17%. “There is still a lot to do. (…) The purchasing power of Spaniards is still low, there are too many people who live in precariousness and deprivation. What is undeniable is that we are going in the right direction, we are on the right path to solving these problems and that the solution lies in those redistributive policies that the progressive coalition government is promoting,” he stressed.
Source: www.eldiario.es
