From CEOE and CEPYME we want to express our support for the Government, the health teams and the State and Territorial Forces and Security Bodies in the fight against COVID-19 and we guarantee that the entire business ecosystem, from large companies to medium-sized companies Little ones and the self-employed, we will responsibly fulfill the mandates that the decreed state of alarm implies.
Likewise, while we trust that the measures adopted in the extraordinary Council of Ministers last Saturday will be effective to guarantee the health of all citizens, as an absolute priority, and to resume normality throughout the national territory as soon as possible, we also urge the Government to adopt at its meeting next Tuesday the urgent measures that businessmen have proposed in recent days to the Executive.
The situation of economic exceptionality by COVID-19 requires a broad response from national institutions and from the EU.
The Government of Spain has to put in place useful and quick mechanisms to guarantee liquidity to companies, especially small and medium-sized companies and the self-employed, to avoid their immediate bankruptcy and to enable them to maintain activity while protecting employment, and for this reason we insist in these three aspects:
Urgent measures of a labor nature are required, as stated in the agreement signed between employers and unions, especially the simplification and streamlining of procedures in the temporary employment regulation files (ERTEs) with retroactive effect and recognition in situations such as current alarm state of force majeure for your presentation.
In addition, we demand that, in the absence of liquidity caused by inactivity, the obligation to pay contributions by the company be suspended, while, on the side of the worker, access to unemployment protection is contemplated without demand grace period and without prejudice to the recognition of future unemployment benefits.
We also consider it essential to facilitate teleworking, understanding as fulfilled the obligation of companies to assess risks with the self-evaluation carried out by the worker himself.
A second aspect is that of deferrals and installments of payment automatically and without interest for a sufficient period of time for all the tax payments that have to be made by companies that have suffered significantly a drop in their income or an increase in expenses. in 2020 by COVID-19.
In this sense, the group of the self-employed is in a particularly difficult situation that also requires a suspension of social contributions, the payment of sick leave from the first day and the articulation of a termination benefit from an extraordinary fund.
Finally, it is absolutely necessary and urgent to put in place a line of public guarantees sufficient to facilitate access to credit by companies, especially SMEs and the self-employed, and that Public Administrations immediately pay their suppliers the pending invoices and those that they receive, without even exhausting the terms established by the Law of late payment, as well as the acceleration of pending tax refunds.
We want to make it clear that we share with the Government that this is a crisis that needs to be addressed with a sense of state, beyond territorial and ideological differences, and in which all Spanish society must remain united.
We also want to highlight the invaluable work being carried out by the human team that currently supports both public and private healthcare, and insist that Spain has one of the best healthcare systems in the world to deal with this crisis.
The key to a country is its companies and when we are able to overcome this epidemic, we must also be able to return to normalcy as a country, recovering economic activity as soon as possible.
