Cáritas Burgos has decided not to sign with the City Council the extension of the temporary reception agreement for immigrants until an agreement is reached to include Burgos Acoge, Accem and Atalaya in the City Council’s budget for 2025, which were excluded at the request of Vox in the negotiation to move forward next year’s accounts.
Cáritas, which would renounce the 19,000 euros of the agreement, has informed through a statement sent to the media of the decision adopted after the meeting held this Monday between the three affected organizations and Cáritas itself with the mayor, Cristina Ayala, the spokesperson of Vox, Fernando Martínez Acitores, and the Councilor for Social Services, Andrea Ballesteros.
The diocesan delegate, Mario Vivanco, has stated that the work carried out by entities that care for vulnerable migrants “is indispensable” and has expressed his specific support for Burgos Acoge, Accem and Atalaya, with whom Cáritas works “on a regular basis.”
For Cáritas, the reception, promotion and protection of migrants “contributes to a more just and fraternal society” and ensures that, following the evangelical principles that guide its actions, it serves “all people in need equally.”
NGOs defend the endorsement of municipal technicians
Nuria Revilla, from Burgos Acoge, who has acted as spokesperson for the three affected NGOs, has described the measure as “drastic for the city, for the municipal social services” and has defended that the data from the municipal technical reports “corroborate the work that these entities do.”
Likewise, he recalled that this is a total amount of 190,000 euros, and has insisted that these organizations have served “more than 7,000 people in the city” in 2023, for which he has “appealed for co-responsibility,” and “ “understanding” since there are three “entities specialized in serving the migrant population of Burgos.” “They are people who are in our educational centers, who are in our companies, who are our neighbors,” he recalled.
For her part, the spokesperson for the Government team and Councilor for Social Services, Andrea Ballesteros, has promised to “continue talking” and has reiterated that this is a coalition government, which means that the municipal budget items have to be negotiated to 2025, while the affected organizations hope “that this measure will be reversed. Let him retire.”
A decision “totally contrary to responsibility”
They consider that the decision of the Government team is “totally contrary to the sense of responsibility”, as Nuria Revilla has stated, who has insisted that “not everything goes, you cannot negotiate with everything, there are minimums” and that is why they have defended the need to “keep the door open” in order to reverse this measure.
Nuria Revilla explained that the withdrawal of the agreement “has an important impact” and indicated that at the meeting it was explained that “every euro they receive” these entities multiply by a hundred, “a task, that of the organizations that cannot “make public social services.”
“They inform, guide, but do not process residence and work permits, nationality applications, community permits, requests from companies when they want to hire a worker and they do not provide advice on health care,” said Revilla, who He believes that there could be “a collapse in municipal social services because they are people who have to be cared for.”
For their part, the social workers of the city council have requested a meeting to assess the “implications that the elimination of these agreements will have on their daily work”, according to Ballesteros, while Martínez-Acitores has indicated that the decision will not be modified and The 2025 accounts will be approved provisionally in the November plenary session.
Tudanca describes as “creepy” that the PP has accepted Vox’s proposal
The general secretary of the PSOE of Castilla y León, Luis Tudanca, has described as “creepy” that the PP has accepted Vox’s proposal in the Burgos City Council to withdraw subsidies to NGOs that serve migrants in the capital of Burgos.
Tudanca has criticized that the PP is capable of accepting the request of its government partner, linked to the approval of the 2025 municipal budgets, to retain the Mayor’s Office in Burgos, he stated at the presentation ceremony of the 50th anniversary of the refoundation of the Burgos PSOE.
“They are capable of selling the Mayor’s chair in exchange for fundamental rights, which must be far above money and the mayor’s chair,” said Tudanca, who lamented that “sometimes -PP and Vox- look alike. so much so that they cannot be distinguished.”
The socialist has taken advantage of the event in Burgos to once again reach out to the PP in Castilla y León, in order to be able to reach an agreement to carry out the 2025 budgets, although he has insisted that Alfonso Fernández Mañueco has to present the draft and demonstrate that “it was not a bluff.”
He has considered that it is necessary for the budgets to contain measures in favor of access to decent housing, the improvement of public health, including the recovery of the University Hospital of Burgos, and the free provision of textbooks and school supplies.
This Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. there is a demonstration called in the Plaza Mayor of Burgos in support of NGOs that work with migrants, according to what the general secretary of the PSOE in Castilla y León has shared on his networks.
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