Iñaki Uribarri Hernández is an economist and has been in the welfare counseling offices for 24 years, paying attention to people. First with the Txiroaren Bat Eginik platform in Vitoria-Gasteiz, and after its disappearance in Argilan-ESK. A perfect watchtower to get a close look at the harsh realities that lie behind cold data.

In 1989, the benefit that we know today as RGI, the Minimum Insertion Income, was born. In general, the period 1989-2008 corresponds to the times when social benefits have been more complete and guaranteed, despite the adaptations that there were for both good and evil. “All the changes that have been made since 2008 are in a poor state.” In that year, the government of Patxi López developed the law 18/2008 with the votes in favor of the PSE and the pp and the abstention of the PNV. Among others, they set a limit of two IGRs per household: “The migrants, and especially the students, who have to share the floor, were very affected.” In 2011, the government took another step in reducing and precarizing benefits, led by socialist Gemma Zabaleta: “It took the IGR out of the basic social services network and introduced it into Lanbide, causing the service to deteriorate sharply. And the age that was required went from one to three years.” The PNV took over the Government soon: “It maintained all the previous modifications and, by making adjustments, it struck a hack: imposing a 7% reduction in the amount of money and dissociating the amount of the Minimum Wage. From that moment on, Lanbide’s operation will be very tough on the people who receive the benefit.”

The evolution of the IGR and other social benefits is surprising. Laws and resources to prevent poverty and exclusion emerged in the late 1980s. Since 2008, at a time when the capitalist crisis and the economic policies of governments have multiplied the impoverished, the Basque Government has begun a structural offensive against these benefits: it has reduced the figures, it has tightened the conditions and it has precarized the attention, it has launched campaigns to criminalise both the benefits and the poor, spreading false messages or developing racist speeches. However, the reactivation of the growth cycle by the economy has not deactivated the measures taken during and in the context of the crisis.

ILP proposal for the RGI - One
year of registration - Age
18 - Limit of RGI per household

-
Amount equivalent to Minimum Wage

The IGR recipients
-25.8% are pensioners
- 20% are precarious
workers - 72.8% are indigenous
and - 27.2% are born abroad

Of the 194,060 people living in
poverty or risk of poverty, 59,497 (30.7%) are outside the protection system.

Why now the initiative to adapt the IGR?

“We saw that, despite being in a phase of economic growth, poverty and exclusion are on the rise,” says Bea Martxueta Pérez. An example of this is the profile of those receiving IGR: 25% are pensioners, a notable majority are women, who due to the scarcity of their pensions need to supplement their income; 20% are workers who, even if they are employed, do not earn enough to live. The reality of poor workers is multiplying, fostered by the neoliberal wave of these years and labor reforms. “The share of the wages that entrepreneurs don’t pay we are doing with public money,” Martxueta said.

They wanted to combine a short step with a long look with the ILG: “In the letter we are a lot of social agents and unions, there are a lot of things on the table and the ILP cannot receive them all. The decision was to focus ILP on change of laws,” says Martxueta. Regarding the IGR, the proposal gathers the historical demands of the movements against exclusion: the return from the age of the census to one year; the reduction of the age from 23 to 18 years; the non-limitation of the number of cohabitation units per household and, therefore, of the number of IGR; the resumption of the amount to the Minimum Wage and its equivalence to one hundred per hundred per hundred rights of social assistance. “These measures will not change the system, but they can change the lives of many people.”

If the concrete measures proposed in the articulated text are a short step, Martxueta explained that the preamble intends to turn on long lights and focus on the transformation of the social model. First of all, the Charter draws a horrible picture of reality: “The level of social exclusion and poverty in Hego Euskal Herria generates great concern (...) the growing sector of the population lives without sufficient economic resources to have a minimum level of well-being”. Next, he proposes the main features for the construction of a very different painting: “The Euskal Herria Charter of Social Rights proposes an alternative to the neoliberal model; its economic and social model gives absolute priority to the defense of life and land, and not to the interests of the minority; it places work above capital and people above the market”. On the one hand, there is a need for a reorientation of public policies: the distribution of wealth and works – all – and the promotion of socially beneficial employment. At the same time, the power of decision is vindicated around all these policies.

“The preamble has a great political force,” says Martxueta. “The concrete changes we are proposing are not going to change the system, we are very clear about that. The prologues do, and that is our way.”

For the complicated paths of Parliament

It is the law of 2008 that is in force, including the amendments that have been made to it in subsequent years. In May 2017, the government introduced a bill to promote a “broad consensus social pact”. Within this process, the Social Charter launched the ILP in March 2018. One month later, at the end of April, the parliamentary groups of the PSE and the PNV that support the government abandoned their bill and presented a bill for reform of the IGR. He was taken to plenary in June, in search of his approval. However, in the absence of support, they preferred to delay the vote without deadlines, before the vote was lost.

It is not usual for the Government to reject a bill for the same political groups that make up the Government to table a bill to replace it. In the introduction of the bill, PNV and PSE argue "the need to speed up the adoption of the reform". However, the members of the Social Charter consider the reason to be very different. Martxueta has strongly denounced the attitude of both parties: “The aim is to neutralise ILP. Shaping a proposal for a law is no coincidence, as the procedure is much faster. It does not accept amendments to the whole, only partial ones, the debate shrinks. A month after we presented the ILP, they have presented a bill; and now what we predicted has happened.” In fact, on 18 December the Government expressed its opposition to the ILP, for which the main argument was that a proposal had already been processed: The PSE and the PNV, precisely. “We knew that was going to be the move. Looking at the whole of the previous operation, the government’s attitude has been to hijack the debate,” says Martxueta.

Positions and opinions of the parties

Currently, two proposals have focused on the adaptation of the IGR: PSE-PNV and Social Charter. Most of the measures in the PSE-PNV bill are in line with the cutbacks and increased control. Confining itself to the most important: A single GI per household (with this measure 7,500 cohabitation units – 13.5% – would lose the right to the GI, i.e. some 15,000 people); change the way in which quantities are fixed and, in general, reduce quantities (including a penalty system that maintains or reduces quantities according to their behaviour); fingerprint and other control measures. The proposal also includes extending protection against certain situations. People who have refugee status, for example, will have more facilities, and the amounts of money for large families are expected to increase. However, these measures would affect very few people.

EH parliamentarian Bildu Nerea Kortajarena Ibañez and Elkarrekin parliamentarian Tinixara Guanche Suarez agree on many of the criticisms: “The aim is not to guarantee the IGR, but to turn it into a control. And the system wants to be built from neoliberal economist calculations,” says Kortajarena. “It would involve a mass expulsion of the beneficiaries, a practical reduction in the right. They do it from the logic of control, from the discourse of fraud”, Guanche.

The various social partners and trade unions have criticised the bill almost unanimously and underlined the same points: REAS, Social Cards, CCOO, UGT or Caritas, among others. They denounce that part of the discourse of fraud, which means further deepening the criminalization of poverty, which according to government data has never reached 1%. In general, they say that it is a restrictive proposal, when the objective must be precisely the extension of the parliamentary prestaciones.La of the
PNV, Amaia Arrangi Romarate, has stated that the cut is "a reading that can be done". He argues that the new way of calculating quantities is more objective and, in any case, that “we always have to be “in the head” than the system “has to be sustainable, today and tomorrow, knowing that money is finite”. PSE Member Gloria Sánchez Martín says that the amount of money is the other way round: “We’ve done calculations and in all cases it’s winning with the new proposal” (Argilan-ESK numbers say the opposite, except for large families). Arrangi and Sánchez have highlighted that in the ambit of cohabitation units there are many exceptions, a house with a RGI that flexibilizes the general norm. For the leader of the PSE, the common criticisms of such diverse agents are a consequence of the “lack of knowledge”, “which has not yet been explained because we are in the first phase”.

Opinions on the ILP proposals are turned. Sánchez says that there is already a proposal for PNV-PSE, more comprehensive and with many improvements: “We propose a comprehensive reform and the ILG only loose points.” According to Arrangi, the proposal of the Charter “gathers what is on the street. Pensioners… But it is not possible to fill through the RGI what does not do the complete system, up to 1,080, 1,400 or 2,000€. It’s not a perpetual salary, it’s not the Universal Income.” On the other hand, he considers that although it is not “politically correct” to say so, young people should “do self-criticism”: “We want to leave the house at 30 years old and collect what our parents charge at work, consume... Not everything can be free, we have to take into account each other’s efforts.” The Elkarrekin group welcomes the ILP. “The letter’s proposal is based on pushing back the cutbacks of recent years, prioritizing protection, and we agree with it, even if for us the horizon is Universal Income,” Guanche said. According to Kortajarena of EH Bildu, the agents of the Charter have carried out a “workable synthesis exercise” that they applauded. “Although it collects different things, we understand it within an anti-poverty strategy.”

There is little chance of progress in Parliament

Once the 51,000 signatures have been validated, EH Bildu’s candidate will come to the plenary in early February. Discussions would take place between the political groups, a representative of the Charter would defend the proposal and the ILP would be voted on. If it were adopted, it would have to follow the same lengthy procedure as all laws, including the possibilities for amendment. But it will hardly succeed in making the citizens' initiative progress. The support of pp is discarded, also that of the PSE, in the words of Sánchez, and it is expected that the PNV also stands against, although Arrangi does not completely close the issue: “I don’t know what we’ll say, but if the government has expressed its opposition, I imagine we’ll do it too.” There is no majority with the votes of EH Bildu and Elkarrekin.

Interestingly, although all parties advocate the need for constitutional reform, there may be no legislative changes in this legislature. The Government presented the reform of the IGR as one of the main challenges of the legislature, promising a broad social pact around the benefit system, but without the support of the groups that make up the Government. The proposal for pp is insufficient. Agirre sees more chances of reaching an agreement with EH Bildu: “His attitude is more realistic than Elkarri’s.” Conversely, since EH Bildu, and despite the talks held in recent months, Kortajarena recognizes few possibilities: “In order to reach an agreement with us, the Government would have to accept the measures agreed by the actors: in view of what has happened so far, it seems difficult.”

Does the road in Parliament end?

If Parliament rejects the ILP, Martxueta makes it clear: “We’re going to make mobilizations. And at the time we said we were going to make a parliamentary round.”
There is money, according to Martxueta. “This year’s budget is the highest of all times. In addition, we generate money”: by applying progressive taxation based on income, or by fighting tax fraud of around 20%.” The debate and the struggle, not between parties, is between models of society. “It is seen that the PNV and the PSE want to bring social protection to a minimum. From there, let each look for his private solution. Pensioners, for example, through private supplementary funds and pensions”.

Martxueta looks to the recent past to open the doors to a more just future from today. In 1997, the Charter of Social Rights presented an ILP, supported by 83,000 signatures and supported by a general strike focused on the same demands. “There were, for example, 35 hours and what was called social wage. Everything that was required was not achieved, but what we have today is a result of the struggles of the past.”

ARGUMENTS FOR THE DESERTION OF CORRUPT BELIEFS

"Let them get to work, live indolently from the benefits"

25.8% of IGR beneficiaries are unable to seek employment: they are pensioners who have to supplement the retirement pension in order to live.

- 20% of workers are already workers, they have a job, but they have to complete their low wages in order to live.

- The rest (55%) are forced to actively seek employment, losing the IGR.

Almost half of the beneficiaries, whether active or retired. It is the labour market that excludes the rest of employment.

"Stricter control of GI is needed"

A person receiving the RGI: controls the current accounts, controls what the money is spent on; advises of any change before 15 days; the police can register the house without notice...Among all benefits and subsidies, the
RGI is the one with the most stringent control measures.

"Migrants abuse the benefit system and make it unfeasible"

27.2% of the beneficiaries of the IGR are migrants representing 9.2% of the CAPV population. Poverty among migrants is 30.7 per cent, and among those born 4.1 per cent.

Depending on the number of inhabitants, the group of migrants has an excessive presence among the beneficiaries of the IGR; according to poverty situations, the IGR is lower.

"Many people who do not really need the IGR receive it, take advantage of the excessive protection of the system"

Latest Survey of Poverty and Social Inequalities of the Basque Government (2016): 59,497 people of the 194,060 living in poverty or risk of poverty (30.7%) are outside the protection system.
The protection system continues to leave tens of thousands of poor people in an unprotected situation.

"But there's no money"

In the government budgets for 2019, the IGR stood at 3.28%, EUR 387 million: Tax fraud has multiplied by five, reaching EUR 2 billion a year.

The money is left over, in the absence of will.