- Title: Spaniards rally for better pensions
- Date: 22nd September 2018
- Summary: MADRID, SPAIN (SEPTEMBER 22, 2018) (REUTERS) PROTESTER HOLDING MICROPHONE LEADING CHANTS, SAYING (Spanish): "NO MATTER WHO IS IN GOVERNMENT, PENSIONS MUST BE DEFENDED" / "NOT A SINGLE STEP BACK" / "WE ARE GOING TO WIN THIS BATTLE" LARGE CROWDS OF PROTESTERS HOLDING SIGNS AND BANNERS BANNER READING IN SPANISH: "DIGNIFIED PENSIONS NOW! FUENLABRADA" PROTESTERS MARCHING PEOPLE
- Embargoed: 6th October 2018 20:10
- Keywords: pensioners protest Spanish government higher state pensions parliament
- Location: MADRID, SPAIN
- City: MADRID, SPAIN
- Country: Spain
- Topics: Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA0018YPL007
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Thousands of people marched on Saturday (September 22) through the streets of central Madrid calling for higher state pensions and demanding government action.
Demonstrators, many of whom were pensioner, held banners demanding dignity and shouted "thieves, thieves" as they marched past the Spanish parliament building.
Protesters want the government to raise retirement pensions in line with inflation.
Since 2014, retirement pensions have risen by a below-inflation 0.25 percent per year.
In June this year, Spain's new Socialist government reached a preliminary deal to raise retirement pensions, suggesting a less restrictive approach to spending after years of austerity under their predecessors of Spain's conservative People's Party (PP).
The multi-party commission that controls social spending had agreed to the raise, though full details are still to be decided.
Consumer prices in Spain rose 2.1 percent year-on-year in May according to data from the National Statistics Institute, the sharpest increase since April 2017.
Spain's conservative People's Party (PP), forced out after six years in government in a no-confidence vote that followed a slew of corruption cases involving PP members, kept a tight rein on spending to cut one of the euro zone's highest public deficits.
The welfare system's backup fund was decimated by around five years of recession following a burst real estate bubble in 2008, while an ageing population means funds are still being drained from public coffers faster than they can be replenished.
Spain has around 8.7 million retirees claiming a pension and a falling birth rate has prompted concerns of a potential pensions time bomb and calls for a deeper reform of the system than that passed in 2013. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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