ACCORDING TO THE CIRCLE OF ENTREPRENEURS 78% of entrepreneurs believe that government intervention is negative for competitiveness

78% of businessmen consider that the Government’s intervention in business activity is negative for the country’s competitiveness, as can be extracted from the ‘Círculo 2023 Business Survey’ prepared by the Círculo de Empresarios, in collaboration with the Association of Journalists of Economic Information (APIE)

The study, presented this Tuesday in Madrid, also reveals that businessmen call institutional quality (76.7%) and the image that the Government has of businessmen (79.6%) as “main obstacles” to competitiveness.

In this last aspect, the president of the Círculo de Empresarios, Manuel Pérez-Sala, recalled that the Government “has attacked” businessmen such as Marta Ortega, Juan Roig or Rafael del Pino, creating a “harmful” environment for many companies, since it is “useless” for a government to criticize with names and surnames businessmen who are creating wealth in the country and who rather “are a model to respect and imitate.”

On the other hand, companies mainly assess the imbalance in public accounts negatively (84.3%); the increase in interest rates (81%); the non-deflation of tax rates (72.5%); the increase in the Minimum Interprofessional Wage and contributions (59.6%) or the labor reform (53.8%).

In general, more than half of businesspeople (51%) consider that the economic situation is not good in Spain and a similar percentage believes that next year it will not be good either.

Regarding taxation, 73% of those surveyed see that the tax burden is detrimental to the competitiveness of their company and sector, while among the tax reforms that are considered most appropriate to improve this taxation, 72% point out which are tax incentives for investment and 60%, the reduction of social contributions paid by the company.

Furthermore, 90% of those surveyed consider that public spending management in Spain is not efficient and to ensure efficient public administrations, 71% understand that it is necessary to evaluate the efficiency of spending and 60% believe that a structural reform of administrations.

From the Círculo de Empresarios, they have been “deeply concerned” regarding the tax burden and public debt in Spain, which they have recognized that has fallen in relation to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but is increasing in absolute value “in very relevant quantities.”

For his part, Pérez-Sala has shown little optimism regarding a reform of public spending and measures of the effectiveness of public spending. “Public administrations are profoundly inefficient. Very little will be achieved,” he criticized.

68.1% of businessmen continue to support increasing the legal retirement age and the president of the Businessmen’s Circle has insisted on the need to delay the retirement age to 68 years.

For Pérez-Sala, there are only two options: either lower the amount of pensions or delay the retirement age. “We have expressed ourselves on numerous occasions for the second option, because it seems to us to be much more respectful of all Spanish citizens,” she indicated.

Regarding education, during the presentation of the data, the need for an educational pact (56%) and promoting vocational training and dual training (75%) was insisted on in order to compete with the rest of the countries. Europeans and be able to alleviate the problem of vacancies in Spain.

“At this moment there are about 150,000 vacancies in our country because the position that needs to be filled is not suitable for the people capable of filling it,” he noted.

56.3% of companies have not applied for European funds, a percentage that increases compared to the previous year, due to the complexity of administrative procedures (50.7%), because their sector is not included in the lever policies (38 .4%) or because they consider that they only benefit large companies (31.5%).

Likewise, 25.1% have not done so due to lack of knowledge of the requirements and procedures and 19.7% due to lack of internal resources to manage the project. In general, 75% of respondents consider the management of European funds to be poor or average, as can be seen from the study.

From the Business Circle, they have spoken of “jams” within the execution of the funds, despite the fact that they recognize an “increase” in the last year, although “low.” However, they have assured that Spanish businessmen “constantly” complain that they do not receive the amounts, even though many are already approved.