Presentation of Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan in Valencia

2020.11.5

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Valencia

Good day, thank you very much, dear regional president, public officials, and thank you for hosting this such important event for the Government of Spain, for the Region of Valencia and indeed for the whole of Spanish society.

I want to begin by evoking a date back in 1953, when a filmmaker from Valencia premiered a black and white film at the Callao Cinema in Madrid that satirically portrayed the image of Spain at that time, 70 years ago. This director was Luis García Berlanga, who in this film, "Welcome Mr Marshall", showed how the European post-war recovery car travelled through our country. Europe benefitted; while Spain under the Franco regime was left to one side.

Our country back then was a wasteland of poverty, a dictatorship isolated from the boom of economic and social progress that our European neighbours were enjoying at that time. It wasn't the first or the last time that Spain was left behind. We had to wait until the 1980s for the European family to welcome us and for our country to claim its rightful place.

It is true that things have fortunately changed a great deal since then. So much so that we now have a chance to break this trend, to go one step further as from the year 2021 which is precisely - by curious irony - the Berlanga year in our country. 2021 can be, and must be, and this is an obligation that falls on all of us, the year in which the car does not pass us by but stops and Spain jumps on board. And with another great difference that I would like to share with all of you, which is that this time the car of the recovery does not come from the other side of the Atlantic, but is the car that Europe has itself set in motion. 75 years ago, if we go back to that time, the United States saved Europe while Spain was left behind, the Spain of the Franco regime; whereas this time Europe will save Europe and Spain will be on-board.

The regional president said this before; barely 10 months ago, if you remember, we started to glimpse the country that we wanted to build, with the formation of the first coalition government in the democratic history of our country. A decade opened up in front of us to push Spain to take a great new leap of progress with the transformation that we had identified in the investiture speech and in the government programme we considered our country needed to adopt.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit us in March and our whole perspective of change was frozen in its tracks. Together with Europe and with the rest of the world, Spain was hit very hard by an unknown virus. At that time, the first thing the government did, with the consensus of the regional governments and local authorities, was to save lives, and also defend public health, save jobs and later help companies. And we did that with all the tools at our disposal.

We did this through the state of emergency, a constitutional instrument, and hence a legitimate instrument, which flattened the curve in that first wave, with an unprecedented social and economic shield in the democratic history of our country, because the crisis we are suffering from is also unprecedented. We acted from the outset with a raft of measures designed to alleviate the damage and protect our citizens as a whole, above all those who were most vulnerable to the pandemic and to its social and economic effects, we should remember that, because our citizens as a whole, whether they be workers, business owners or public institutions are making an unprecedented effort.

We mobilised up to 200 billion euros, close to 20% of the volume of our annual wealth - the largest volume of resources ever to have been allocated in our country to protect companies, principally small- and medium-sized enterprises and the self-employed. Today, more than 550,000 business owners can continue with their activities thanks to the financial guarantees granted by the whole of Spanish society, represented by the State.

Together with that, let's remember, we protected, at the most difficult time of the lockdown, 3.4 million workers through the mechanism of the Temporary Lay-off Plan (Spanish acronym: ERTE), but fortunately now, more than 80% of these workers have returned to their job positions. We set in motion, for the first time, an extraordinary benefit for independent contractors which benefitted, at the most difficult time of the lockdown, of the pandemic, 1.5 million self-employed workers.

And now, almost 150,000 independent contractors benefit from the new provisions we set in motion in the summer. And together with them, we also created a robust social shield, which allowed more than 216,000 families and independent contractors to be protected in situations of vulnerability, who obtained, for example, let's remember, a moratorium on mortgage debts for the acquisition of their primary residence or of the premises where they carry on their economic activity. We established an automatic extension on rental contracts for homes that had expired and we suspended evictions for the non-payment of rent for vulnerable families without accommodation alternatives. These are just some of the measures we set in motion in the field of housing.

And I believe it is important, on a complementary basis, to remember that in record time, in the midst of the pandemic, we implemented one of the main achievements, developments, structural reforms, which is the Minimum Living Income. This Minimum Living Income, I would remind you, has, in just a few short months, meant the protection of 136,000 homes in which more than 400,000 people live. Hence, we only had one option to deal with this calamity, which was to respond with the same intensity. We opted to resist to make progress. And this resistance was also possible because of something that Region President Puig mentioned and I would like to reiterate in the field of Spanish politics, which is that we opted to resist in order to make progress, and we did so thanks to an unprecedented exercise in unity and also in the history of our democracy by supporting each other through the force of unity and dialogue.

Firstly, and I would like to say this standing next to the representatives of the social stakeholders, through the work of business owners, of their representatives and also of workers' representatives, with social dialogue. In little more than 10 months of this term of office, and in mid-pandemic, we have reached five major agreements with the social stakeholders: three agreements to extend the ERTEs until 31 January; an Economic Reactivation and Employment Pact, and the Remote Working Act, which is a pioneering law at a European level, which serves as a source of inspiration, furthermore, within the scope of the International Labour Organization.

This is the path that the Government of Spain, and also the Regional Government of Valencia believes in, one of social dialogue.

And secondly, through the response from everyone that we gave via the European institutions. Through Europe reaching an agreement with Europe and thus finding a way to rise to the level of the health, economic and social crisis we are going through. And also with Spain, and we should highlight this, leading the way in the demand for a great Marshall Plan, as Regional President Puig said before, for a great Recovery Plan for our country, an agreement which was reached, fortunately for everyone, back in July, and which has now become a reality, except, quite logically, for its ratification by the European Parliament in the coming weeks.

And we have come here to talk about that today. But first I would like to make some references to and reflections on the health emergency we are suffering from. COVID-19 takes no heed of ideologies or borders, as we have said on many occasions. But if we have learned something during this whole long year it is that we can only defeat the virus through our collective discipline. It is true that we overcame the first wave. And we thus proved that we are capable of doing this. And since then we have continued to fight this virus. The second wave has been back with us for some weeks now, and consequently we must act with this same effort, with this same resistance, with this same scent for victory with which we overcame the first wave of the virus.

We are now fighting the second wave; it is true that the characteristics are different from the first wave, and hence our response must adapt to the characteristics of this second wave of the pandemic; it must be different. To that end, we have a National Strategy against the second wave that was drawn up by the Inter-territorial Health Council, which is at the heart of the decisions we must take to tackle this health emergency, clearly through the coordination of the Ministry of Health of the Government of Spain.

This Strategy has three pillars that I would like to underline.

Firstly, common indicators, now accredited with the backing of the EU, established by the Government of Spain and also agreed on with the regional governments.

Together with these common indicators, in second place we have a raft of actions agreed upon and backed by a common legal and constitutional instrument - the state of emergency - which has been approved by the Lower House of Parliament for the next six months. These actions range from limitations on the freedom of movement of people at night-time, as we have seen, to a reduction in groups of people in public and private spaces, and other actions that are specific to the powers of the regional governments, as Regional President Puig rightly mentioned, such as the closure of the borders of the regions, their provinces and/or municipalities, timetable restrictions on commercial premises and the closure of certain establishments.

Hence, we have common indicators, concerted actions, and thirdly, we also have a common evaluation, which allows us to do something very important, which is to regularly verify the situation in each and every region to measure the efficacy of the measures we are implementing over time, which will require between two and three weeks, because we now know how the virus works and how we must measure and evaluate the efficacy of the actions we are taking.

Hence, for this second wave we have a National Strategy, with common indicators, concerted actions with constitutional backing, which is what the state of emergency is, and lastly a regular and common evaluation made by the Inter-territorial Health Council on a weekly basis.

And basing our work on these three pillars, and following the timelines set by the scientists, by the epidemiological experts that are needed to see the spread of the pandemic, I am convinced that we will flatten the curve as we did in the first wave. We have set a goal, an ambitious goal, to reduce the cumulative rate to 25 infections per 100,000 inhabitants each 14 days.

We have the legal coverage to act over the next six months. This is the period that the experts consider to be adequate to overcome the most critical stage of the pandemic. And at the end of this six-month period, the implementation of the campaigns with the new vaccines that could be ready by that time, accompanied by the change of season, I am convinced will help us gradually recover this much-awaited normality by all our people.

But I insist, meanwhile we have six months in which we need the same collective discipline as we showed in the first wave. Aside from that, we have all the foundations laid, the knowledge and the resources to overcome the other two emergencies apart from the health emergency - the economic emergency and the social emergency.

That is why we are here, to present in the first region where we have been able to hold this meeting, and furthermore I do this with deep gratitude to all the institutions in the Region of Valencia, dear regional president, the roadmap that sets out the path for the Spain that we want under this Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan in which the Region of Valencia will play, I am sure, a very important role.

The last time I had the chance to be here with you was on 25 January. I did so to see first-hand the disastrous effects - we remember them well Mr Regional President - of Storm Gloria. It is true that that now seems to date back to pre-history, before the pandemic, and to then pass on to the whole of the society here in Valencia the commitment of firm, resounding and effective support from the Government of Spain for those families that were suffering from the consequences of the storm.

Just nine months have gone by since that visit. Few people imagined back then what the future would hold and I come back to Valencia in circumstances that are also difficult. But if we stop a moment and reflect on that time and on the present, it is important to see that many of the needs that concerned us then remain priorities in the current situation; I would even go so far as to say that they are now even more of a priority.

Now, as then, we must speak about caring for people who have been hit even harder by an unexpected disaster.

We must speak about living conditions and infrastructures, about the recovery and renewal of tourist activity, which is one of the sectors most affected by the health emergency. We must speak about sustainability and the energy transition, which are particularly important in this region, with a Mediterranean that, as Regional President Puig rightly reminded us of in the visit we made a few months ago, back in January, has to some extent become ground zero in terms of climate change.

In short, now is the time to tackle all these challenges with renewed vigour and with a new ambition that we must deploy collectively. Because the pandemic amounts to a huge catalyst of those processes that Spain needed to address, imposing a global framework of transformations that no one can now ignore.

Transformations that Europe has understood well. The sense, precisely through the historic agreement we reached in July, is the unequivocal message that all the European leaders conveyed - that Europe cannot be content with returning to where we were before the pandemic. It is not just a question of a come-back; it is a question of pushing on towards a far-reaching transformation of our economy and of our society. And that is what Spain is going to do.

This is precisely what this Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan enshrines, which it is my pleasure to present to Valencian society here today. This Plan summarises Spain's response to this great European commitment, this great Marshall Plan, the Next Generation EU, which will mean for our country the possibility of receiving, between non-repayable transfers and loans, a fund of 140 billion euros over the next six years, that is, until 2026. To give us an idea, the structural funds Spain received back in the 1990s amounted to around 8 billion euros over six years, whereas here we are talking about 140 billion over six years. An unprecedented figure, equivalent to 11% of our GDP in 2019, in addition to the more than 79 billion euros allocated to Spain through the structural funds and the Common Agricultural Policy for the period 2021-2027. Hence, a tremendous effort in terms of absorption and management, but also a great opportunity to transform our country. This is clearly an exceptional opportunity that rises to the occasion of an exceptional situation.

We are going to make a very important commitment: to concentrate a total of close to 72 billion euros in non-repayable transfers over the period 2021-2023, in other words, 72 billion euros over three years, with the aim of re-launching economic activity and creating jobs in the first few years. In short, this is a case of addressing the economic crisis caused by the pandemic from the outset and laying the foundations to transform our economy with an inclusive focus, which is environmentally sustainable, as Regional President Puig said, and also technologically cutting-edge.

Just look, under this Plan, the government seeks, among other things, to speed up by 40% the quantitative targets of our National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan, which is our great commitment, our roadmap for the ecological transition. What we are going to do is bring forward the intermediate targets to 2023 that we originally set for 2025. So, we will bring them forward by two years. And we also estimate that the Plan will allow us to reduce, as Regional President Puig rightly said, the inequality gap with the EU average by two thirds.

The pandemic has highlighted many things, including the weaknesses facing, for example, European industry in a world of complex value chains and increasing uncertainty. Let's all just remember what happened with the PPE in the first wave, and what happened with the respirators. So, the industrial capacity of our continent, of Europe, faced serious disruptions in the commercial channels that made an effective and autonomous response to COVID-19 difficult.

The Recovery Plan will strengthen all the industrial capacities of our country, through investments in the development of key technologies for the future of industry, by developing the necessary strategic autonomy that will contribute to achieve several goals in line with the priorities set by the European Union.

Hence, this is not just any Recovery Plan. This is the most important Plan in our history. To start with, it is truly a strategic commitment to the young people of this country, to young Europeans, to what they represent. It is also an essential step towards a new and profound modernisation of our country in all its aspects and dimensions.

The step that makes Spain more prosperous and more resilient, which commits to the ecological transition and also to a technological and digital transformation. A step that fosters the diversification and competitiveness of companies and industries in Spain, and strengthens such strategic sectors as agroindustry, which is also so important for this land, biotechnology, construction, and the automotive and tourist industries, that are very important for this region, while precisely avoiding specific dependence on just one or two of them.

The step towards a Spain that boosts science, which is so clearly necessary and essential to guarantee the health of everyone, precisely as we are seeing in this pandemic, that boosts R&D+i, and not just through words, but through investment and conviction, because, as I said before, science and innovation are so important.

A Spain that decisively believes in excellence, universality and equality in education. That is committed to strengthening public health - another of the great lessons to be taken away from this pandemic. That transmits security to independent contractors and fosters the social economy. That sees in such industries as culture and sport a source of current wealth, while also displaying our finest hallmark. In short, we can do this; it is in our hands. We must simply begin this as soon as possible, because the final success will depend on conviction and speed, as Regional President Puig rightly said, and on us harnessing this tremendous opportunity and speeding up the transformations that our economy and the whole of our society needs.

We must take the opportunity of this economic moment, because we have the capacity to do that. There are some figures regarding the Spanish economy that we would do well to remember, because this situation in which we live is passing at the speed of light, and hence we have no time to waste, but there are some figures that are worth highlighting. We know that the Spanish economy has been the second hardest hit by the pandemic in the second quarter of this year. But we have made a great effort, supporting our companies, as I stressed earlier, our independent contractors, our workers and our institutions, as Regional President Puig rightly reminded us of before; and we did this to lift ourselves up and get back on track.

The expectations were low for the Spanish economy without the strength we get from tourism, for example, which is one of the most competitive sectors, and one which creates a great many jobs, but which has unfortunately been seriously harmed as a result of the lockdown, but thanks to the efforts made by everyone - business owners, workers and institutions, from the smallest municipality to the Government of Spain, and the European Union as a whole - we have managed to resume a path of strong growth, of 16.7% of GDP in the third quarter of this year, according to the National Statistics Institute (Spanish acronym: INE), easily beating the forecasts made by all the analysts, which stood at a recovery of our GDP of between 11% and 13%, but which finally was 16.7%.

Furthermore, the job market continues to post positive back-to-back months. In October, for example, we added almost 114,000 new social security contributors and we have now recovered some 590,000 jobs since the worst point of the health crisis. Accordingly, the worst collective mistake we could make now is to ignore the decisive moment we find ourselves at.

We talk about funds and budgets, but it is not just a question of money. It is a question of choosing the economic model we want for the Region of Valencia, and also for Spain, and of allocating the resources with efficacy and intelligence to activate this as quickly as possible.

Just look at the National Budget for 2021, which only yesterday the Minister for Transport and the regional president had the opportunity to present to Valencian society, which contains what I believe is an unprecedented advance payment in the history of our country, of 27 billion euros under the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, which has been, by the way, the main victim of many of the financial restrictions we have suffered from during all of these years of the financial crisis. This, as I said before, is an unprecedented mobilisation of resources. As soon as the Budget is approved, we can start the rounds of proposals for those projects that have been designed by the whole of Valencian society and Spanish society. And we want to approve the National Budget before the end of the year.

What Spain do we want to see through these projects?

Firstly, we want a green Spain. And if Spain is green, then the Region of Valencia will be green. In this region, we have companies that promote energy studies (such as Solarius Energías Renovables), that produce photovoltaic solar energy (such as the group, the company Grupotec) and also thermal energy. We have companies - you have companies - that create energy communities to promote self-consumption (such as Sapiens Energía here in this region). In short, the Region of Valencia has the foundations to continue transforming its land, as does the rest of the country. That is why we aspire to speed up the targets by 40%, the quantitative targets of the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan. In addition, we want to have 250,000 new electric vehicles by 2023, as an initial step to achieving 5 million electric vehicles in our country by 2030, and we also want to move towards achieving a 100% renewable energy system by the year 2050. This is very ambitious commitment, but one that is possible.

Precisely this week, we approved a new decree at the Council of Ministers that will regulate future renewable facilities through auction, to give them a stable and attractive framework for investment, which is precisely what they haven't had in recent years. In fact, the projects under way will mobilise the astronomical figure of more than 100 billion euros over the next two decades. In other words, the transformation that the financial sector and the private sector is already involved in is enormous and the public sector must ensure that all the legal guarantees are in place so that these investments can be made with all due guarantees, under the best possible conditions, with the maximum security and stability, because this will be beneficial to the creation of companies and also to the creation of thousands of high quality jobs.

Secondly, we want a digital Spain. And if Spain is digital, then the Region of Valencia will be digital. We are well aware that companies in Valencia have developed a great deal on this technological front that Spain precisely needs and demands. The development of a sector that is a mix of industry and culture, like the videogame sector, is growing strongly in the Region of Valencia, with such companies as Elite3D, Spherical Pixel, Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team and Codigames. And companies from Valencia have also arrived in Silicon Valley, to San Francisco, to the United States, including Cuatroochenta, which precisely develops applications for mobile phones.

In other words, there is a tremendous presence of the entrepreneurial fabric in the region that can precisely be at the forefront of this digital transformation that the whole country needs. And to continue supporting these companies, these business projects, the government has drawn up the Digital Spain 2025 Agenda. This will be the roadmap to guide us in a key aspect for the modernisation of our business fabric to guarantee international competitiveness. This is also a goal that I believe has great social potential; we are going to promote 80% of the Spanish population receiving training in digital skills, which is one of the main subjects pending for our society, and for 75% - and this is very important because we are going to be at the forefront in Europe - of the Spanish population to have 5G coverage, and for the whole Spanish population to have access to fast Internet.

Thirdly, and the regional president said this before, we want a Spain without gender gaps. Women are particularly suffering from this economic, social and health emergency, and we want to see a Spain with full equality between men and women. We also want to see a Region of Valencia with full equality. It is a fact that Valencia is committed to equality. Clear examples of this are the Equality Units set up at a municipal level, and the Espai Lidera, set in motion by the València Activa employment agency to promote the leadership of women, training and entrepreneurship; in short, questions that you are more familiar with than me.

And fourthly, together with this reduction in the gender gap, we also need, as the regional president rightly mentioned, a cohesive Spain, an inclusive Spain. A Spain that halts the march of poverty and exclusion, that ensures that these transitions have an inclusive perspective and that the inequalities the world has experienced in recent decades are halted and the trend reversed. The pandemic has clearly shown that our model of development has become outdated and needs to be replaced with a new concept of progress that allows social and territorial gaps to be closed, and which creates inter-generational justice so that we can leave our young people a fairer world in all aspects and dimensions. One that contributes, and this is also very important for this region, to balanced urban development, but also to the development of a balanced rural environment.

This progress must go hand-in-hand with the creation of stable, quality jobs, with enhancing the transformations I mentioned before: the ecological transition, which must also be a driver of the economy, settles regions and allows us to create as many as 350,000 jobs between now and 2030. And the digital transformation, which will connect, as I said before, the whole of Spain, with high-speed coverage for our villages and cities, and that will be a fundamental driver of employment in the years to come.

And something else that is fundamental and a priority for this government, and I am aware it also is for the Regional Government of Valencia, which is education, education as a key factor for job creation. To that end, one of the main pillars of our Recovery Plan is education, with as much as one fifth of these 140 billion euros going to education and vocational training in the next six years.

We can see this Plan enhanced, for example, in the National Budget that we have presented and that we hope will be debated shortly in the Lower House of Parliament, which will allocate almost 4.9 billion euros to education policy, that is, 70% more resources than we have had to date.

And through these resources, we will not only strengthen the digitalisation of education, which we have all seen as necessary, as parents, in our own homes during the toughest times of the lockdown, but it is also necessary for this leap in digitalisation to be taken in our public education, without undermining classroom teaching, which is fundamental, but by boosting equality with 2.09 billion euros in grants, the largest allocation for grants in our country's history.

Furthermore, we are going to step up our commitment to vocational training. This is something I have been told by the trade unions and business organisations and which I am sure is a diagnosis we all share. The target is very ambitious - to create 200,000 new places on vocational training courses in the next three years, updating qualifications and creating other new ones tied into emerging sectors such as robotics, big data and smart industry.

And we will also roll out a plan to accredit the basic and professional skills of more than 3 million workers, people who are skilled but do not have this formal qualification that will allow them to find a job more easily. Because we must now focus on the new jobs that are being created in the private sector.

In the Region of Valencia we have examples of companies that are already working in another sphere, with a more cohesive and inclusive focus, which I mentioned before. One of these, a paradigm of things well done is the Consum supermarket chain, which is promoting 25 lines of work to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda which the Government of Spain is fully committed to, as are the range of institutions in the Region of Valencia.

These include initiatives that are very important; while they may seem minor they are tremendously transforming, such as donations to social projects in the countryside, food parcels to more than 50,000 vulnerable families a year, reducing the gender wage gap between male and female employees, the labour market insertion of people with disabilities and the recovery of one of the outstanding matters, which I can tell you the government is fully committed to, which is the recovery of 134,000 tonnes of waste for recycling or recovery, in other words, enhancing the circular economy that we are fully committed to.

There are companies that when I saw not just their corporate purpose, but above all their whole commitment being deployed with a social impact, one company particularly stood out which is the brand Timpers, engaged in the design and sale of shoes online which has a marked social nature, integrating, for example, blind people in the design process and making all their products accessible. It is precisely committed to the full inclusion of disability, to which end they have set up a Special Employment Centre, so that 100% of their workforce is made up of people with some form of disability. This is the Spain we want to advocate because it is a real and committed Spain, and you can also see a business and social vision in its economic competitiveness. The company exclusively manufactures in the province of Alicante, ensuring high quality standards which all Spanish companies endeavour to provide. In May 2019, it was selected to take part in the Garage Programme under the Lanzadera initiative that is also headed up by a prominent business owner from this region, and has just been selected to move into the Traction phase.

Hence, what I mean by this is that there is a great deal of sensitivity in the Region of Valencia, which we wish to pass on to the Recovery Plan, such as social and territorial cohesion and inclusive growth. We need more projects that head in this direction, backed by large companies in the region. And all this while we continue to make radical progress as no other prior government has done in increasing budgetary investments, as I will outline later on, for the Region of Valencia.

What I would like to say to you is that these are the four main transformations that the Government of Spain agreed on following dialogue with the social stakeholders and with different members of civil society, to prioritise our lines of action with the European Union. In other words, the framework of reference under which we must work and transform our economy and society.

These four pillars are the ecological transition, digitalisation, gender equality and social and territorial cohesion.

On these four pillars, on these four transformations, the Plan develops 10 guiding policies, with a well prioritised, well defined, very specific distribution of funds that I would like to share with all of you:

The first guiding policy is that of the urban and rural agenda, the fight against rural depopulation and the development of agroindustry, which will account for 16% of the resources in measures to improve, for example, living conditions in urban environments, which is one of the pending tasks on a par with creating a great many jobs, as we all know, to provide a response to the needs of the rural environment and foster the digitalisation of our farmers from an ecological perspective.

The second guiding policy is infrastructures, which we have called resilient ecosystems, which will receive 12% of the resources. Green and blue investments, with a very clear aim, which is decarbonisation, modernising key transport infrastructures, preserving our coastlines, which is key for this region, and water resources in light of climate change, and, in short, fighting desertification and conserving one of our main jewels which we should value more highly, namely the rich and powerful biodiversity of our country.

The third guiding policy is the just and inclusive energy transition, which will be allocated 9% of the resources, to strategically position us as leaders in energy renewal at a global level, instead of just at a European level.

And together with that, the fourth guiding policy is something that Regional President Puig mentioned earlier and which I feel is fundamental, which is the modernisation of our public authorities, adapting them to the criteria and parameters of the 21st Century, to ensure, for example, that the system of justice acts in due time and form as a driver of technological changes, for it to be greener and more digital, innovating and accompanying the private sector, and creating new business models. We will allocate 5% of the resources to this and logically we want to see this for all public authorities in our country.

The fifth guiding policy is the modernisation of our entire productive system under the parameters of digitalisation, particularly of our SMEs, which are very small and very fragmented, whereby we must ensure they continue growing so that they can export and gain in competitiveness, and that includes our industrial and tourism sectors, which I am convinced will come out of this even stronger, as well as boosting the strategy that we have called Spain: an Entrepreneurial Nation. This latter goal, in my opinion, is of the utmost importance to improve our industrial competitiveness and create a new industrial policy through measures that will account for no less than 17% of the funds.

The sixth guiding policy is the Pact for Science and Innovation and strengthening the capacities of the National Health System. I feel that one of the main lessons is that we need to strengthen our mechanisms for redistribution and protection in the field of healthcare and public health. No one can argue about the importance of this area, which will be allocated 17% of the economic resources.

The seventh guiding policy is a priority for us, as I said earlier, which is education and knowledge, continuous training and the development of the employment skills of our workers. If there is one key element for the investment and reform plan to have its desired impact, it is investment in our most important capital - human capital. This will thus be allocated 18% of the resources - the largest share in the distribution of the funds.

The eighth guiding policy is the new care economy and employment policies. The pandemic has shown the absolute need to place people at the heart of the economy, and rethink our model of care for the elderly, which until now has been highly concentrated in care homes for the elderly, and henceforth will need to be rethought with the consensus of the local authorities, local services, those elderly people who do not wish to go into a care home but wish to stay at home. We must move towards care and care economy systems that are much more local as well as much less costly, much fairer and more efficient. We will allocate 6% of the funds to this together with a new active employment policy.

The ninth driving policy is the development of the culture and sports industries, which we have sought to give specific importance to because this is an area that is a source of wealth, not only from an economic point of view but also from an intellectual point of view, and also in relation to employment, health and values, which will now have an allocation of around 1.1% of all the economic resources.

And the tenth and final guiding policy is the modernisation of our fiscal system and some of the elements mentioned before by Regional President Puig. In the wake of the pandemic, I feel it is essential to renew out fiscal system. Some elements are already being set in motion at a European level which we must also incorporate when designing our fiscal system. Let's remember that the European Commission is going to become indebted for all our benefits, or rather, we are all going to become indebted together with the European Commission to finance these 750 billion euros. We must open up a major debate on the EU's own resources, and this will logically have an impact, an effect, on our country.

Hence, we must revise our fiscal system to ensure inclusive and sustainable growth that is thriving, much fairer and adapted to the reality of the 21st Century. We have precisely appointed a committee of experts so design this new fiscal system for a world that will change from an economic and fiscal perspective in the wake of the pandemic.

Four transformations, ladies and gentlemen, 10 guiding policies, that will promote the place we want to see Spain occupy on the international stage over the coming decades. The success of its implementation will shape the success of our country and of us as a society.

We have designed this Plan with a lot of expectations, through a lot of hard work, a great many hours, with multidisciplinary teams; a Plan to respond to historical needs from the new perspectives with which we must endow it. In order to modernise our economy with two main priorities that I mentioned before: the ecological transition and digitalisation, which together will take up 70% of all the resources that we will mobilise.

A Plan which, in economic terms, to give you an idea, will generate an additional impact on GDP of more than 2.5 points per annum, and we are not just talking here about numbers, but through better quality jobs and less job insecurity. We are talking about growing in a new manner, through better equality jobs, with less insecurity, and hence jobs that are more dignified, sustainable and inclusive.

The aim of the Plan is to create thousands of jobs. What the experts are saying is that we will create more than 800,000 jobs over the next three years. Sustained job creation is the only possible way to build a better Spain together.

To achieve that, the Plan will be accompanied by many other measures, some of which Regional President Puig has mentioned, which I would like to underline, above all, to the social stakeholders, and I am aware that this is one of the main social concerns, which is the challenge of absorbing this huge volume of economic resources that will also have a very important knock-on effect on private investment, as we have seen in the recent news that has been announced today and which will be seen in the coming weeks in private sector investment. We are going to approve a Royal Decree Law through which we will undertake the legal and administrative reforms necessary to efficiently, impeccably, transparently and quickly manage all these resources.

What will we do to achieve that? We will modify those aspects that are an obstacle to managing and absorbing these resources, for example, we will amend the Public Sector Contracts Act, which is necessary if we want to absorb all these resources and offer a swift response to the economic and social emergency, and we want to amend the General Subsidies Act and the Legal Regime of the Public Sector Act.

In short, all these reforms will always be implemented pursuant to European legislation. And with just one goal: faced with difficulties, what we need is more flexibility and more speed so that between us all we can make this great dream a reality of this major transformation we are called on to undertake in the next six years in our country.

We have traced out the lines to follow, the framework for action. The fundamental part, I would say, of this task we face is now pending, which is to convert all of this into specific actions that practically transform the economy of our country, and hence, allows us to take this leap into the future.

To achieve this, and I say this openly, the Government of Spain is a decisive player. And I would clearly say that this is very important. But it is just one more player in our State of the Autonomies, as Regional President Puig rightly said. Aside from the Government of Spain, we need active participation; I would say that not only effective participation but also the enthusiastic participation of other public institutions, economic agents, social stakeholders and our citizens as a whole. The greater this enthusiasm is, the better we will be able to tackle these challenges we face with all due guarantees. The more we take on this whole challenge as our own - these four transformations - the greater and more lasting the achievements we carve out will be.

With this Plan, we find ourselves facing a huge shared task which calls on each citizen, each company, each group in our country and each region to participate. In order to be successful, we also need to provide ourselves with the necessary instruments to manage, as I said before, the funds effectively, without wasting a single second.

And this means, in addition to this Royal Decree Law that I mentioned, approving a new Budget that is so necessary after the budgetary extensions we have had to use that date back to 2018, which will allow us to set in motion this huge recovery and economic and social transformation process of our country.

Look, we are all aware that no alternative exists to a country Budget, because this is a crisis that affects us all. And a Budget that is also progressive because that is not only the orientation of this government, but we also need to offer a response to these challenges of the energy transition, the digital transition, gender equality and social and territorial cohesion that we need to address as a country in a progressive fashion. Hence, this is what these transformations require.

So, we must transcend the short-sightedness of red lines and opposing classical interests, because none of that is important compared with the urgency and excellence of the goals we are setting as a society at this time in the fight against COVID-19.

This bitter time of the pandemic, dear friends, will pass. We are convinced of that. And precisely in the midst of the harsh time we are having, of unease, of upheaval that a great many economic agents are suffering from, together with each and every one of our citizens, of what the World Health Organization has called the fatigue of the pandemic, we must overcome this upheaval and convert it into an opportunity to make progress. We are facing the greatest economic and social challenge since the re-establishment of our democracy. And hence, if Spain agrees, Spain wins.

And that is exactly the task we have at hand, to win the future for our country. Because things cannot wait. To say that this is the Budget with the largest investment in social spending ever is, for example, to bring things to the level of this region, to say that more than 1 million citizens of Valencia will benefit from a pension increase, and that the region will receive 256 million euros in childbirth allowances and for the care of children, and the more than 750 million euros that will be used to enhance the care economy and to bolster the Welfare State in this region. None of this can wait.

Nor can the 288 million euros wait for the ecological transition of the Region of Valencia, precisely from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Fund. Not can crucial investments wait in infrastructures, such as the 38 million euros for the Metropolitan Transport Authority of Valencia, and the more than 98 million euros to finance the railway sector and services. Or the 194 million euros that will be allocated by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda to investments in this region.

Funding for the reform and renovation of housing in this region cannot wait either, or funding for water management and works on the coastline of Valencia faced with the very present threat of climate change.

Improvements in access to ports and airports cannot wait either, not the modernisation of the suburban network in this region. Solutions cannot wait for the debt incurred, for example, by the Valencia 2007 Consortium, nor the tax breaks for holding the Valencia World Design Capital 2022 project.

And specifically, something else regarding transport, Valencia cannot wait any longer for the La Safor relief road, or for access to Valencia Airport. The time is right now.

And as regards the ecological transition, the Dam Security Plan and the CRECE Plan for the drainage and treatment of waste-water, which are so necessary for this region cannot be put off any longer. In terms of culture, we cannot put off the Historical Provincial Archive of Castellon or the Archive of the Kingdom of Valencia. I repeat, the time is right now.

Castellon must not wait any longer for the desalination plant in Oropesa del Mar, nor the railway bridge nor the northern railway connection. I repeat, the time is right now.

Alicante must not wait any longer to strengthen the supply networks of the municipalities of Mutxamel and Campello. The time is right now. We need a green, digital, feminist and cohesive Region of Valencia.

In summary, what I want to say by this is that the National Budget for 2021 provides for important investments, with a tremendous impact and transformative effect through the mobilisation of a sum of close to 1.2 billion euros. In other words, 57% more than in the National Budget for 2018, with 9.6% for this region.

Investments that correspond to current needs, to historical demands, which we are well aware of because they have been reiterated for a long time by the institutions that are present here, but which, in turn, and I feel this is even more important, are directly linked with the lines of the Plan, as Regional President Puig said. Consequently, we are paving the way for new transformations.

It is important to point out that this is a Budget perfectly aligned with the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan I have presented to you. Its timely approval is fundamental for the Government of Spain, because its timely approval will also be fundamental for the smooth implementation of all the projects contained in the Plan.

We are thinking, for example, about the effects of agricultural digitalisation on the agri-food industry in Valencia, which is so important for Spanish GDP. We are thinking about the possibility of introducing new forms of management and the operation of the tourism offer, including sustainability factors, health and safety, protecting biodiversity, care for protected spaces and territorial cohesion.

We are thinking about revitalising the industrial fabric in Valencia through digitalisation, decarbonisation, technological modernisation and training. We are thinking about giving a decisive push to key infrastructures, such as those related to the Mediterranean Corridor, which is one of the main demands to improve the competitiveness of the Region of Valencia. We are thinking about returning international excellence in R&D+i to the Region of Valencia in the wake of the ground lost for many years during the previous crisis.

This is the opportunity for Spain. And this is particularly the opportunity for European regions, such as that of Valencia, which, on its own merits, is placed on the front line of this race to win the future that we want to see, that we hope to see, and for which we are working. And I am convinced that we will harness this.

I want to stress something that Regional President Puig mentioned before, which I feel is fundamental, and I say this with special satisfaction and pride, and a little envy as well, regional president, which is the example of the "Valencian path" before the pandemic and its consequences, in contrast with this "path of constant provocation" that we must definitively abandon as a country. Something that shows how substantial agreements between political forces are not only possible but also represent the only alternative that is open to us in this current situation. And that is just what our country deserves.

The Region of Valencia has unbeatable human capital and possibilities, and this is something that those of you who are present here know better than anybody. Due to its business culture, as the regional president said earlier, its desire for entrepreneurship and capacity of innovation, which this region has always shown. Due to its tradition of public-private collaboration, which gives continuity to the success of social dialogue achieved at a national level over recent months. Due to its privileged geographic position, the richness of its land and its cultural treasures. Due to the quality of its human capital, which deserves to develop its full potential.

I said at the start of my speech that the Valencian film director Luis García Berlanga portrayed a lethargic Spain in black and white last century. Next year, we will celebrate Berlanga year, but nowadays the Berlanga car could not cross the square in front of the City Council of Valencia because this is the second ranked city in Spain in terms of pedestrianised areas. Today, cutting-edge Valencian companies such as Jeanología are revolutionising the international textile sector with dyeing laser techniques that enhance productivity while drastically reducing the ecological impact.

And if this happens now, let's imagine what we will be capable of in the future. By 2030, in a decade's time. Or in a few more years' time, in 2050, when the generation of today's young people - our sons and daughters - are running this country.

Here and in every corner of Spain we are witnessing a change of era. No one now doubts this in the wake of this pandemic. And we do this by pushing through a Plan, a strategy that will ensure that we enjoy robust growth, which will transform our productive model and strengthen our economic and social resistance so that well-being is distributed in a much fairer fashion than it has to date. So that we can take a giant leap without leaving anyone behind.

We must now choose. Ambition or resignation. Capacity or weakness. Unity or confrontation. These are the dilemmas that each of our societies is facing, including Spanish society. And I have no doubts as to what our decision will be.

We know how to do this. We have shown this in the past, and we will do again. Let's be aware of this historic moment and set an example once again; to the whole world and to the generations that will follow us.

Because this is an admirable country. You can count on us as we count on you. The path is set. And we must now go down it. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you very much.

(Transcript edited by the State Secretariat for Communication)

Non official translation