Spanish people living in London will be trying to emulate the protests from back home outside their London embassy this Saturday from 10am, though the notion of any political event starting promptly at 10 an a Saturday morning does have a slightly dreamy quality.
Here are the demands of their movement.
1. Elimination of politicians’ privileges:
- Strict control of absenteeism of elected people in their positions. Specific sanctions when they avoid doing their job.
- Suppression of their tax privileges; that elected representatives’ salaries be equal to the average Spaniard’s, plus offering them the necessary bonuses due to their specific functions.
- Suppression of immunity associated to having a government position; that corruption crimes do not prescribe.
- That all people holding public positions make a public statement of their wealth.
- Reduction of free designation positions.
2. Against unemployment:
- Create more jobs, thus promoting a reduction in the working hours and until structural unemployment does not exist, in other words, until unemployment rates are under 5%.
- Retirement age at 65, with no possibility of increasing that age, until youth unemployment is solved.
- Offering bonuses to those business that have less than 10% of temporary employees.
- Employment security: that collective firing and laid-offs be impossible, as well as those due to objective cause, as long as businesses have benefits; fiscalization of big businesses to ensure that positions that could be stable are not covered with temporary workers.
- Re-establish the 426€ subsidy for all long term unemployed people.
3. Right to a home:
- Expropriation of homes built on stock but which have not been sold by the state, so that they are included in the market as part of the plan of protected rent.
- Offering economic help to young people and those who do not have the appropriate resources so that they can rent.
- That datio in payment be allowed in order to cancel mortgages on homes.
4. Good quality public services:
- Suppress useless expenses in the public administration; to establish an independent control of expenses and budgets.
- Hiring sanitary personnel to end waiting lists.
- Hiring more teachers to guarantee the student/classroom ratio and support groups.
- Reduction of tuition costs at the university.
- Public financing of research to guarantee its independence.
- Cheap public transportation; it must also be of good quality and ecologically sustainable: re-establishment of the trains that are being replaced by the AVE (high speed) with their original prices; make season tickets cheaper; restrict private vehicles in the center of the cities; build bike lanes.
- Social resources: that the Dependency Law be applied, creating networks of local care-givers, as well as local mediation and guardianship services.
5. Control of banks:
- Prohibition of any type of rescuing to banks: those entities which have difficulty must either file for bankruptcy or become nationalized, thus constituting a public bank under social control.
- Raise bank taxes in a way directly proportional to the social expense created by a crisis which has occurred due to a bad management.
- That the banks return to the Treasury all public capital.
- The prohibition for Spanish banks to invest their money in any tax heaven.
- Regulation of sanctions to speculative movements and bank malpractice.
6. TAXES:
- Raise taxes to the rich and banks.
- Suppression of SICAV (similar to US open-ended mutual fund).
- Recovery of the Patrimony Tax.
- Real and effective control of fiscal fraud as well as the escape of capital to tax heaven.
- International promotion of the adoption of a tax to international transactions (Tobin)
7. Citizens’ liberties and participative democracy:
– No Internet control. Abolition of the Ley Sinde.
- Protection of information freedom and research journalism.
- Obligatory referendum to important issues that modify citizens’ living conditions.
- Obligatory referendum before introducing any measures dictated by the European Union.
- Change in the Electoral Law in order to guarantee a real representative system, proportional so that it does not discriminate any political force or social will, and in which blank vote and null vote also be represented.
- Independence of the Judiciary power: Reform in the Fiscal Ministry to guarantee its independence; rejection of the appointment done by the Executive power of members of the Constitutional Court or of the General Council of the Judiciary power.
- Reform of the figure of Fiscal Ministry to guarantee its independence.
8. Reduction of military expenses.
