The president of the Junta de Andalucia, José Antonio Griñán, has called upon the Central Government to review the debt limit set for the region, a limit Griñan believes is discriminatory and will involve the closure of 19 hospitals, half the schools and make 60,000 public employees redundant.
The debt limit set by the Central Government has been reduced by €2,73 billion for 2013 and has authorised the use of all means, such as the Court of Contentious Administration and the Constitutional Court, to fight the issue.
Andalucia, like everywhere else, is now having to pay for the excesses of the boom years, but why is it always health and education that are immediately threatened with being thrown to the wolves? Apart from the obvious political scaremongering ploy of trying to gain the sympathy vote, of course. Surely there must be other ways to at least partly achieve the objectives.
In times of financial crisis, particularly one as deep and severe as this one, would it not be better to pause funding for such projects as huge swimming pools, state of the art sports stadiums and football pitches for tiny municipalities rather than close hospitals?
There must be any number of ways to reduce costs without savaging the health and education services.