Complaints have reached Brussels and remain open. It deals with the problems of those affected by the works on line 7 of the Madrid metro, who in many cases have to leave their homes, and the shoe workers, the so-called Both conflicts reached the European Parliament’s Petitions Committee, which decided to keep them in order to try to answer them, even though the European Commission declared itself incompetent to intervene in both cases.
“Anger and powerlessness” is what a representative of the Association of Victims of Madrid’s Metro Line 7 expressed, at what he described as the “abandonment” of Madrid Community President Isabel Díaz Ayuso. He said this is 15 years of neglect after these infrastructure works damaged hundreds of homes in San Fernando and Coslada. Recently, 24 families were evicted. In addition to asking the European Parliament to send a mission to the ground to analyze the situation, the association called for an investigation into the “European funding support” for the project.
The Petitions Committee, with support from the Socialists, Greens, Left and Liberals, has decided to keep the matter open and must decide whether to send representation, although in principle it will not be soon. However, the representative of the European Commission assured that he does not have the opportunity to enter into this issue, because it does not involve the application of European regulations, but an internal matter. “The European Commission does not have general powers to intervene,” he said.
“The European Union must respond,” PSOE representative Cristina Maestre said. Ciudadanos’ representative, Adrian Vázquez, advocated not “polarizing” the issue politically and defended keeping the petition open “until the parties sit down in Madrid and find an immediate solution to this problem.” “When it comes to citizens, you have to be there to protect them,” said Anna Miranda (Greens), who insisted the European Parliament was “being called into question” by the Qatargate scandal and should “lead by example”. IU MEP Sira Rego shamed the Community of Madrid into sending a representative to the Commission to “deploy the sea of resources and actions that have not been launched”.
“I am confused because after listening to the commission, which said that it is not competent to keep such a petition open (…) it is an electoral issue, media noise,” PP MEP Pablo Arias complained. He called on residents to sit down with the Madrid community to “find a final solution.” “Don’t come as if this is a ring to start the election campaign,” he reprimanded the other groups.
“It’s not demagoguery, it’s not politics, it’s the reality that 600 people live in many conditions,” answered the representative of the association, which calls for “solidarity with neighbors” and worries about “inhuman displacements.” We had two years to sit down with the Madrid community and they always refused.
Unstable sideboard conditions
A few hours later came a petition from shoe workers demanding European intervention in a precarious employment situation. “We are at home, in hidden workshops and factories,” said the representative, Inmaculada Matute, who told us how he worked endless days for two to three euros an hour, which sometimes turned into 1.5 euros. And he put other figures on the table: 7,300 women working without contributions and therefore without the right to a pension when they reach retirement age.
Matute explained that they are applying to Europe for “institutional abandonment” in Spain, because the Ministry of Labor told them that it is not their competence and the Ministry of Social Protection did not respond. “Nothing that the European framework and directive says is fulfilled in this case,” he said.
Also in this case, the European Commission has given up its powers and left everything related to the recognition of contributions, occupational diseases and the application of employment regulations. “It’s the national government that has to step in when the rules aren’t followed,” summed up a community authority representative who said it was difficult to contact them, much to the dismay of the side speaker. “I never thought we’d come here with so many lies and asking to hear the benefits of shoes,” he replied, before confirming that a study by Miguel Hernandez University indicated that 80% of the shoe industry is “secret.” and without control”.
“When there is an underground economy and it is clear that we are dealing with an industry that participates in the underground economy, it is a burden,” said Socialist MEP Inmaculada Rodríguez Pinheiro. “It seems a shame to look the other way,” condemned Miguel Urban (anti-capitalists), who denounced that the industry “makes a profit from shoes that are made for 1.5 euros and sold for a thousand. This is happening in Europe.”
PP MEP Leopoldo Gil López has come out in defense of the shoe employers for whom he was full of flattery. “Companies are committed to their workers, wages have increased,” he said, before assuring them they have “good practices, decent quality employment and future prospects.” “Companies, not only in Europe but in the rest of the world, trust the product, but also the people who make them and their companies,” he added about one of the most important economic sectors in the community of Valencia.
The decision of the Petitions Committee was to keep the complaint open and to send the study prepared by the Commission of Inquiry to the Valencia Courts to the European Parliament’s Committees on Employment and Women’s Rights, which was met with satisfaction by the sideboards.
On the other hand, the organization rejected Vox’s intention to maintain a complaint about the alleged insecurity in some areas of Catalonia, which raised the “safe areas platform” with an anti-immigration discourse.
Source: El Diario
