The increase in taxes planned by the regional government for 2016 will be levied on those who have more and who earn more. President Armengol said in parliament today that she believes that "this is what needs to be done".
Responding to a question from Jaume Font of the El Pi party, the president denied that next year's budget will penalise small to medium-sized business and the middle and working classes. "It is not true," she asserted. Armengol went to say that she was, in part, in agreement with Font's approach to the need to change the Balearic economic model and to create a knowledge economy based on innovation and new technologies. "This is a change that many have preached for years, and it is precisely this which the government is doing."
Font asked her for an opinion regarding the 67,000 increase in the number of the unemployed in October, a "bad figure" for Armengol, despite a 10% drop in unemployment from 2014 and a 3% growth forecast for the Balearics next year. The president added that she was very much concerned that there are people who do not have access to any benefits.
The El Pi leader called for a change to the economic model that should be reflected in the 2016 budget and for which his party has tabled an amendment. He remarked that recent summer seasons have all finished with conclusions of having been the best ever, yet "unemployment continues all the same". Above all, he argued that there needs to be more than simply a debate surrounding tourism seasonality. It has been spoken about for over 30 years, and he implied that he did not believe that anything would change.
Alberto Jarabo of Podemos, also on employment issues, said that he was "comforted" by the government's commitment to developing policies for the over-45 unemployed. He criticised a "an unfair economic system that abandons" those which it considers to be "unproductive". He accused PSOE of having contributed to this system and so demanded that PSOE changes its "patterns of behaviour".