PRESS RELAESES

• The Draft Bill of General State Budgets (PGE) includes in the last eighteenth disposition of its articles an unacceptable modification of Law 3/2004 of the Arrears Law. 
• This modification implies the withdrawal of the ICO Line forecast for town councils with the objective of settling their debts with their suppliers. 
• The Platform rejects this modification of the Law and demands the Government uphold the forecast creation of the ICO Line, as this is essential for our economy.

The Ministry of Economy has included within the articles of the draft bill of General State Budgets (PGE) for 2011 a final disposition of Law 15/2010 of Measure to Fight Arrears which will eliminate one of the essential points through which the town councils could pay their debts.

The modification of the Law which the Government aims to pass would eliminate the obligation to create an ICO line for the urgent funding of local corporations, in order for these to be able to pay-off their debts with suppliers, dated up until 30 April 2010 and which arise to several thousand million Euros.

The Multi-sector Platform against Dilatoriness is categorically opposed to this modification and demands the Government complies with the regulation approved last July by the Congress of Deputies, which urged the Government to implement this ICO line within 30 days. This period has concluded and our Government is, therefore, in an illegal situation which has been surreptitiously allowed.

As has occurred with the Special Infrastructure plan, which is not calculated as a deficit and has the approval of ICO, it is the Government's job to find a way to ensure the new ICO line is compatible with their deficit objectives. It is inadmissible that this objective can be used as an excuse to violate a legal obligation. The payment to suppliers of local corporations is essential for thousands of SMEs, self-employed workers and their families throughout Spain.

The Multi-sector Platform against Dilatoriness is a national association which is comprised of about one hundred regional and sectoral institutions, in a national and regional scope. It represents more than one million businesses, which employ more than four million workers and represent a turnover in excess of 150,000 million Euros.