The society of Autonomous Workers, ATA, has sent an official statement where it “demands” an immediate response to alleviate the unsustainable situation of the self-employed affected by all price increases, both from electricity and from fuels and other energies. “The uncontrolled escalation of prices directly affects 1,100,000 self-employed, one in three, and indirectly affects all of them, it is unsustainable. Many freelancers, who had not yet recovered from the low activity in the pandemic, receive these prices as the last straw they needed to have to close their businesses. and all for the inaction of a government that he has given himself 10 days to solve something that is urgent”assured Lorenzo Amor, president of ATA.
From the National Federation of Associations of Self-Employed Workers they consider it “essential” to launch measures in this regard today:
- Enlarge moratoria for the return of ICO credits granted in 2020 and 2021. A large part of the sectors and freelancers who requested them due to the pandemic and who must begin with the returns in April are the same ones who are now drowned by the rise in prices.
- Defer to 2025 any reform of the self-employed contribution system.
- Suspend until at least 2025 the application of the increase in contributions approved as an Intergenerational Equity Mechanism and scheduled for 2023.
- Suspend any tax increase and prices until we recover the GDP prior to the pandemic and the European and national economic situation stabilizes. Quite the contrary, from ATA we request to reduce the taxes on hydrocarbons immediately by applying fiscal mechanisms to reduce energy costs.
- Special aid for affected sectors due to rising fuel prices such as, for example: taxi, fishing, earthworks, commercial agents or ranchers.
- Special aid for the sectors and freelancers affected by the price increases of fertilizers and cereals.
- Promote the RED mechanism for ERTEs for both companies and the self-employed affected by the price crisis and the lack of raw materials.
- An extraordinary aid for the cessation of activity urgently for the self-employed whose activity has fallen by 50% and that contemplates and clarifies the causes of force majeure.
- Reinvest unexecuted direct aid (almost 3,000 million) in a package of new aid to the business fabric.
“While all the European countries have reacted and taken measures, the Spanish Government is setting medium-term dates. We’re late. We are waiting to come with many announcements, but no concrete facts”, added the president of ATA.
Photo: ABC
