Concerning Pablo Iglesias in The Guardian:

Spain rekindles a radical idea: a Europe-wide minimum income

As ever with the Podemos leader it’s less radical than it sounds. The idea is that each country sets a minimum income - probably 60% of median income - and if any income falls below that then it gets topped up. This is really just another name for Milton Friedman’s negative income tax and given that that is well over half a century old it’s not new nor radical. It also fails for the same reason Friedman himself realised his scheme would do so. It’s too expensive.

Things like universal basic income, minimum incomes and all that, they’re entirely possible. Even within the size of the current welfare state bill. It’s just that they’ve got to be basic, really, really, basic, for them to be affordable. Something like 60% of median isn’t affordable.

There’s also that point that a minimum income, as opposed to a universal one, plays merry havoc with incentives as the taper will produce fierce tax and benefit withdrawal rates as people approach that minimum income.

There is also this:

“But the fundamentals are similar,” said Iglesias, envisioning a system where each country would set out a minimum income based on its standard of living, with EU funds deployed to prop up the scheme.

While such a proposal would be likely to see a larger proportion of EU funds flow to countries such as Spain, Iglesias brushed off suggestions that the proposal could exacerbate existing north-south faultlines.

“I don’t agree that these kinds of measures are only beneficial to the south and not the north,” he said, arguing that all member states would benefit from protecting their most vulnerable and the resulting boost in consumer demand.

He’s asking that Germany - a shorthand for the richer Northern European countries - pay for this. Which really isn’t all that new nor radical at all, is it? It’s also, how shall we put this, unlikely to happen.