The acting Ombudsman of Spain, Francisco Fernández Marugán, appeared this Thursday in the Plenary of the Congress of Deputies to take stock of the work carried out in 2020. In a year marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Institution he presides over increased its actions by 40.5%.
Throughout his speech, the Ombudsman reviewed the most relevant issues included in the Ombudsman’s Annual Report and insisted on the need to reach “political, economic and social agreements as consensually as possible” to overcome the crisis caused by the coronavirus.
He also expressed his concern about the situation of young people and called for a stable economic and social framework for this group, which, in his opinion, is the one that most urgently requires the attention of society.
According to the Ombudsman, the young population faces high rates of unemployment and job insecurity, making the 20-29 age group the most economically vulnerable.
In his opinion, the main problems affecting this sector of the population in our country are the difficult access to the labor market and the poor quality of jobs, as well as the difficulties in accessing housing.
All this leads to a sharp drop in the birth rate because young people “it is not that they do not want to have children, it is that they cannot,” said Fernández Marugán.
For this reason, the Ombudsman has urged the implementation of social policy measures, access to stable and decent jobs, promotion of housing and labor conciliation that allow the younger generations to “look to the future with hope”.
The role of the State
Fernández Marugán has valued the important role played by the State in mitigating the economic devastation caused by the pandemic.
Thus, and after stating that “this crisis has highlighted the need for the State to play a leading role”, he expressed his conviction that the impact on the economy “would have been even more profound if measures had not been adopted to mitigate the loss of income of the most vulnerable people and to guarantee liquidity to the business fabric”.
For the Ombudsman, we must now do the opposite of what was done in the 2008 financial crisis, that is, “things other than financial rescue of banks and large companies” to avoid “a sharp increase in poverty and the deepening of the gap that divides those who have access to protection and those who are left out”.
Among the actions undertaken by the public sphere to contain the economic crisis, the Ombudsman highlighted the RTERs, the Minimum Vital Income, the Covid Fund for Health, Education and Social Services and the tax policy which, in his opinion, has “facilitated the survival of many companies and their employment”.
“This is a time for spending and expansive policies must be adopted”, assured the Ombudsman, who sees it inevitable to apply a tax reform “that increases the tax collection and redistributive capacity of our tax system”. Along these lines, Fernández Marugán considers that “the appropriate thing to do” would be to rationalize the taxation of large corporate entities in order to prevent small companies and traditional sectors from bearing the greatest tax burden.
Health
According to the Ombudsman, the outbreak of the pandemic posed an unprecedented challenge and exacerbated the shortcomings of the National Health System (NHS), which the Ombudsman has been warning about for several years.
Among these weaknesses, Fernández Marugán highlighted the “excessively long waiting lists, the fragility of hospital emergency services, the shortage of healthcare professionals, the precariousness of primary care, the problems in hospital care and the insufficient mental health resources”.
For this reason, he advocated “investing more in material and human resources while guaranteeing territorial cohesion” and “prioritizing the most vulnerable elements of the system in this crisis: primary care, public health and mental health”.
The Ombudsman also sees the need to boost preventive health services, create an independent state public health agency and make the inter-territorial coordination mechanism more effective.
Residences for the elderly
Fernández Marugán dedicated part of his speech to explaining the work carried out in the area of residences for the elderly.
Thus, in the worst moments of the pandemic, in April 2020, the Ombudsman addressed recommendations to the autonomous communities to improve health care in geriatric centers, information to family members and the protection of residents’ rights.
Subsequently, and as a result of its actions, and after the joint study and analysis of complaints, the official information received and the evolution of the pandemic, the Ombudsman drew up conclusions that were published in November 2020.
For the Ombudsman, it is necessary for the competent administrations to improve data collection and to produce updated official statistics on residential care resources. In this regard, he has welcomed the publication by the National Statistics Institute of a complete and exhaustive census of residential centers from January 2021.
Another of the conclusions is that health care, either in hospitals or in the residential centers themselves, did not arrive on time, which shows that “it is necessary to strengthen the coordination of residential centers with the regional health services to improve access to medical care”.
Finally, Fernández Marugán pointed out that the organization of the residences itself also failed, “highlighting the structural problems of the model of care for the elderly, mostly in the hands of private entities”. “The emergency was reached without effective contingency plans, with very tight staffing and with basic and in many cases insufficient infrastructure and material resources,” he pointed out.
Migration
On the other hand, the Ombudsman has advocated an overall reflection on the migratory phenomenon in Spain and the possible alternatives that could be adopted to address it adequately.
Fernández Marugán assured that these people “are coming and will continue to come”, which is why, in his opinion, we should urgently and globally evaluate the regulation of migratory flows. He pointed out that “most developed nations, with their aging population, require labor and migrants and refugees, who need a safe place to live and work, offer it to them”.
In 2020, the Ombudsman published the monographic report The contribution of immigration to the Spanish economy, which showed that few groups are as necessary and important for the development of Spain as migrants. For the Ombudsman “migration is not only a humanitarian problem, it is also an opportunity for growth”. Fernández Marugán regretted that European policies continue to focus on strengthening borders in the face of migration, instead of seeking ways to facilitate it in a conscious and orderly manner.
Once again, the Ombudsman has questioned the Spanish reception system and has called for a set of policies to avoid having to make improvised decisions, such as those adopted throughout 2020 in the Canary Islands, which were denounced by the Ombudsman in a monographic report. “The system is ineffective in offering decent reception conditions to people who have put their lives at risk in the hope of finding a better future,” he said.
On the other hand, Fernández Marugán has positively valued the different Africa Plans and the Canary Islands Plan approved in November 2020. In addition, he insisted on the need to have a consensus project in the European Union. “The time has come to look beyond the emergency and address a migration policy that takes into account the specific needs of our labor market and our society, within the framework of a European policy,” he said.
The Ombudsman concluded by stating that “we need immigrants in the European Union, but we do not want them to risk their lives” and to this end he pointed out that “we have two possibilities: to perpetuate the current model of a narrow door, based on an unrealistic analysis and contrary to our interests, or to lead within Europe and with Africa an orderly migratory policy, which is what the 21st Century demands. I believe that the latter should be the right path”.
