The municipal government team led by Mayor Noelia Arroyo received this Friday the second consecutive blow from opposition groups in less than three days, as a consequence of their minority status. It was also a wake-up call in which MC, PSOE, Vox and Sí Cartagena, united under the same premise, made it very clear that without dialogue, without consensus and without negotiation this legislature will not follow the paths set by the councilor in the investiture plenary session last June.
Last Tuesday it was in the Finance Commission and this Friday, in the Plenary. The local government’s proposal to modify the fiscal ordinances of municipal taxes and fees of the Cartagena City Council for the year 2024 was shot down due to the lack of seeking other alternatives to move it forward. The opposition flatly rejected the PP proposal presented by the Councilor for Education and Finance, Nacho Jáudenes. The four groups voted against and demanded “negotiation” from the executive, from whom they are still waiting for a call to set the points of this ordinance, which can still receive approval in a second round. They also expressed their discomfort. In their responses, they agreed that the local Executive should not “impose” its policies “without agreements”, because it “does not have a sufficient majority” to do so.
What they did support the PP in was the new general collection ordinance of the Cartagena City Council, which, among other measures, expands the facilities for paying taxes to avoid late payments by companies and families with difficulties and offers, in turn, a greater transparency and legal security for taxpayers. In this case, all members of the Corporation raised their hands to give their approval.
The popular proposal for the tax ordinances maintains “all the deductions that were approved in the previous legislature,” according to Jáudenes. He presented them as “the most beneficial for families, the self-employed and small and medium-sized businesses in Cartagena.” In his intervention before the Corporation he sent several notices. The first, that the groups “should try to overcome their complexes and shortsightedness and analyze the initiatives that are brought to this Plenary based on their content and objectives, regardless of the acronyms that propose them.”
“Partisan interests”
And the second, that “to reach an agreement it is necessary that both parties want to and this morning you have preferred to put the interests of your parties before the needs of the people of Cartagena.” He recalled that, with the negative result of the vote, “setting up a store in Cartagena will be more expensive, creating employment will be worth twice as much and a hotel that wants to open all year round and generate new jobs will pay more.”
The final ruling on the tax ordinances included an amendment presented by Sí Cartagena to extend the bonus from 25 to 50% of the Construction, Facilities and Works Tax (ICIO) to self-employed workers who make investments that involve job creation. The councilor of that formation, Ana Belén Castejón, was the only one who presented improvement proposals to the plenary session. Specifically, seven, of which only one was approved. This councilor believes that the local Executive lost the opportunity to promote a “consensual, balanced, technically viable and adjusted to the needs that Cartagena needs” taxation. In her case, she highlighted the lack of dialogue on the part of the team of her former political partner Arroyo de ella. The rest of the opposition political groups also highlighted it.
The PSOE, for its part, presented its amendments moments before the session, at the Board of Spokespersons, but finally its spokesperson, Manuel Torres, withdrew them because “the government of Noelia Arroyo is acting as if it had an absolute majority without taking into account to opposition groups. To that, he added: «They have presented their tax ordinances done, closed and without any type of negotiation. “They prefer to impose their vision and not negotiate.”
Torres made public a report from the municipal auditor on the PP tax reduction. According to this document, it will mean 235,000 euros of savings for all citizens of the municipality. “The efforts that Arroyo makes to make us pay less are ridiculous, because when the accounts are done, the reality is that each citizen of Cartagena will save on average 1.05 euros,” he commented, while showing that amount in his hand in coins.
MC Rationale
The mayor of MC, the majority opposition group, Isabel García, justified her refusal because, she assured, they have not been given the opportunity to participate in the preparation of the proposal. She believed that the only thing the PP has done is “sell smoke.” She criticized the increase in the capital gains bonus from 90% to 92% only “to continue selling the same modification all year.” She also encouraged looking for a single plot of land in the city center on which construction has been carried out and whose promoters have benefited from the bonus on the Tax on Constructions, Installations and Works (ICIO).
García also sent a message, this time to Arroyo. He told him that “we hope that they change their attitude and that they get to work seriously on the ordinances and budgets for 2024 that Cartagena needs.”
For his part, the deputy spokesperson for Vox, Gonzalo López Pretel, who only intervened at the end of the plenary session, pointed out that the vote “confirms the failure” of the local government. He justified his rejection by saying that, despite “agreeing on the tax freeze,” this “is not enough.” He warned that the path must be “negotiation”, and recalled that “we continue with our hand formally extended to the government of Mayor Arroyo, to give it stability”, not only to carry out the fiscal ordinances, but also for the budgets and for the General plan. His words were interpreted by those attending the extraordinary session as a request from Vox to enter the Government.
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