The CNMC and the lives of residents | Economy | EUROtoday

We start 2025 with essential pending points on the financial agenda. There is a transparent distinction between the overall habits of the economic system and the notion of residents. The profitability of Spanish corporations continues to extend and reached report ranges within the third quarter of 2024, as much as 25.4% of added worth over gross sales, in keeping with the Business Margins Observatory. The final two years have additionally been years of historic income for monetary establishments, because of the rise in rates of interest and the privileged therapy supplied by the European Central Bank.

The unstoppable financial focus is rising the market energy of corporations, which implies their capacity to set costs. The enhance in enterprise margins has been final 12 months, particularly notable in gasoline, electrical energy and particularly in meals. Faced with this implacable actuality, the safety and rights of residents more and more depend upon public organizations that guarantee the right functioning of markets and compliance with legal guidelines.

In Spain, this operate is carried out by the CNMC created in 2013. Its founding regulation establishes that “The National Commission of Markets and Competition aims to guarantee, preserve and promote the correct functioning, transparency and the existence of effective competition in all markets and productive sectors, for the benefit of consumers and users.”

There are older legal guidelines that now not appear to belong to our world as we speak. We will not be of that world, as Raimon sang. I’m referring to the Royal Decree of May 3, 1993, signed by the socialist minister Carlos Solchaga. It established a General Code of Conduct with very clear and easy guidelines to guard traders. “All persons and entities must act in the exercise of their activities, impartially and without putting their own interests before those of their clients, for their benefit and the proper functioning of the market.” 30 years in the past.

In its steadiness sheet for the 12 months, the Asufin affiliation has rightly recalled the pending opinions of the CNMC on two essential points: “Why is the rise in ECB interest rates that we have suffered since the middle of the previous year (2023) not transferred to the remuneration of consumers’ savings? The association reproaches the CNMC for “not yet providing the analysis of the level of competition among the banks that it promised and which could confirm that there has been concertation to limit the cost of liabilities to its clients.” He has additionally reminded the guarantor of the right functioning of the market that he has to rule on the banking tax and whether or not the entities have handed it on to the commissions to their purchasers.

The extra energy of the oligopolies, the extra want for market management. The well-being of residents doesn’t rely solely on their salaries and pensions, however more and more on the associated fee and situations of fundamental providers and provides. Market abuses trigger an increasing number of harm and are carried out with extra impunity.