In the last issue we reported on several reports from various organisations that alert us to the growing inequality and socioeconomic exclusion in Spain. With high-risk signals, the particularly concerning child poverty rate stood at 29.2%, the highest in the EU and persistently high since 2019. This percentage translates to 2.7 million children and adolescents in precarious situations. In the search for answers to such a distressing problem, in the country that is now considered the European locomotive, UNICEF has contributed its bit. In a recent report, it proposes a series of measures that include both cash transfers (a universal child benefit of €100 and €200 per month, and an increase in the Minimum Vital Income of 20% and 40%), and new employment policies (a 20% increase in the minimum wage and a 20% increase in labour intensity).
The most impactful, both in terms of cost and feasibility, would be the progressive universal child benefit of €100 per month, which, isolated from the rest, could reduce child poverty by up to 11.2% in our country, or in other words, lift 270,000 minors out of poverty. Delving into the details, it is to be assumed that the child poverty figures in Spain account for the 2,370 children living in the Cańada Real. An illegal settlement, yes, the largest in Europe, stretching 15 kilometres long, which also concentrates one of the largest pockets of exclusion in the country. In Madrid, the capital region of Spain.
In 2017, public administrations and political forces reached an unprecedented agreement to implement a definitive solution for the area, but since then only partial relocations have been carried out. Families continue to mostly live in substandard housing, without paved roads, without public transport, and in the last five years without electricity in two of the six sectors that make up the “neighbourhood”. About 1,600 children from the Cańada Real are also suffering from energy poverty. In February of this year, the Council of Europe concluded that these electricity cuts infringe multiple elements of the Revised European Social Charter.♦
