The Spanish Federation of Large Families (FEFN) called on the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) for more support with discounts and no penalties for children in fees and services to large families, which are of great value to towns and cities in terms of population and economic and social development.
The vice-president of the FEFN, Eduardo Galicia, met the FEMP’s Finance Committee, where he highlighted the value of large families and urged local councils to take advantage of their potential by investing in them as a guarantee for the future.
The FEFN has called for policies that support large families and take their reality into account, in order to end the penalties they often suffer in accessing goods and services, including:
- Water, for which they pay more because they consume more. They have more children and, therefore, more washing machines, more showers…!
- Rubbish collection fees, which establish a surcharge per person that assumes that having more children means polluting more and penalises households with more children.
- Property tax, which overlooks the fact that these families need more income and to live in larger homes, even though the surface area occupied per person is smaller.
- Vehicle tax, which also penalises these families for needing larger cars, even though they always have ‘high occupancy’.
The Vice-President has highlighted these penalties, calling for the application of rebates – provided for in the law – and other measures that take into account the number of children, so that having more children does not hinder access to goods and services.
Mayors and municipal representatives from some fifteen cities, including Madrid, Malaga, Zamora, Salamanca, Valladolid, Merida, Estepona and Algeciras, participated in the Commission and were able to hear the proposals of the federation of large families.