“Don’t forget that you are mayor thanks to Vox and that our votes are not free. We must act against illegal immigration.” In this way, in June the leader of Vox, Juan García-Gallardo, still vice president of the Junta de Castilla y León, recalled the fragility and obligations of the government pact between his party and the PP in the Burgos City Council following another controversy. in immigration matters. After almost a week without commenting on the controversy, the mayor, Cristina Ayala (PP), has indicated that she does not want to “assume” the cost of there being no municipal accounts for 2025 so “at this time there is no option to change the budget”.
The mayor has justified the measure with which she has committed a government pact to “give stability to the city” and move forward with the project so as not to “paralyze” the city. The councilor has indicated that there are differences between PP and Vox although, despite a measure against migrants, they are “much closer to Vox” than they are to the PSOE.
Ayala has continued to charge against the PSOE to make latent the discrepancies with the socialist model and that of PP and Vox. For the mayor, both parties do not agree “on absolutely any of the city projects.” The socialists, through their municipal spokesperson and former mayor, Daniel de la Rosa, have made an offer to the PP to break and reissue agreements to move the budgets forward.
‘The end that justifies the means’ for Ayala is to approve the municipal accounts for 2025. Whatever the cost. All this, despite the fact that the measure has strong social rejection and a demonstration against it that has gathered around 2,500 people. “The fact of being with a government partner means that either we approve -their proposals- or there are no budgets,” indicated the mayor. Days before, the spokesperson for the City Council assured that there was no “blackmail or threats” regarding the suppression of 119,000 euros to NGOs. Ballesteros herself even indicated that “They would not have eliminated this aid if they had governed alone.”
“Last year there were some demands and this year there are other demands. Next year there will be a different approach. We’ll see what that different approach is,” Ayala explained. Among the ‘snips’ of Vox and PP in Burgos in the budgets for 2024 are the elimination of aid to the Coordinator for the Recovery of the Historical Memory of Burgos and the University Chair or the reduction by half of the international cooperation budget.
In June of this year, Vox tried to get the Municipal Police to carry out “periodic inspections, home visits and identity checks” with the aim of detecting “possible cases of illegal registration,” according to the vice mayor, Fernando Martínez-Acitores (Vox). All this without bringing data to the fore to try to justify a measure that, according to Vox, would avoid “illegal” registrations to “receive aid or try to regularize their situation.” He also pointed out a possible “electoral fraud” in these registrations in addition to pointing out that “all” the causes are related “to cases of illegal immigration.”
On this occasion, the mayor had to disavow her government partner and recalled that only she gives orders to the Police. At that time, the now former vice president of the Board reminded him of the obligations of his pact in a message on the social network X.
This measure affects the NGOs Burgos Acoge, Accem and Atalaya, which will no longer receive 119,000 euros for, as the vice mayor considered, contributing to the “call effect” without adding a justifiable explanation for the measure. Martínez-Acitores this Thursday on the Radio Arlanzón station, in a gathering with the municipal spokespersons of the PP and PSOE, ‘has invited’ the Confederation of Business Associations of Burgos – the provincial and local employers’ association – to bounce back the items they receive from the City Council to NGOs.
Left out of this cut was Cáritas, who announced this Monday in a statement that it was not going to sign with the City Council the extension of the temporary reception agreement for immigrants until an agreement is reached to include it in the City Council’s budget for 2025 with the rest of the entities.
All the work that the NGOs assumed, as the spokesperson explained this Tuesday and the mayor has supported, will have to be assumed “as best they can” by the staff of social workers of the Burgos City Council, as Ayala pointed out.
The PP and Vox will maintain aid to NGOs in the province
The Provincial Council of Burgos, chaired with an absolute majority of the PP, will allocate funds to NGOs and, in addition, will increase aid, as stated by the president of the Provincial Council, Borja Suárez, who is also president of the provincial PP and councilor at City Hall. The budgets of the provincial institution will have the support of the extreme right in exchange for multiplying by 30 the funds for vulnerable women considering abortionafter going from one thousand euros to 30,000 euros by 2025.
Regarding this measure or the suppression of agreements with the affected NGOs, as Suárez has revealed, Vox has not made any request in this regard. The president of the Burgos PP has defended the position of the measure taken in the capital’s City Council although he has reproached that he does not like the “forms” so they will have to address the measure with the entities.
The president of the provincial PP wanted to point out that “there are different Vox.” On the one hand, “the Vox of Castilla y León, which breaks a government pact due to an occurrence by Mr. Abascal and with an irresponsibility that they have not yet explained,” as he has reported. On the other hand, according to Suárez, there is also “the Vox of the Burgos City Council”, “at the dictate of the same one that broke the pact in Castilla y León” and, finally, Vox of the province, which “has put nothing on the table ”.
In his reflection, Suárez has positively valued the work of NGOs with migrants. For the ‘popular’ leader, Burgos is “a province that will be saved by immigration” and that, “if it has a future, it will be because of the people who come from abroad to be in our territory.”
“Firm” support from the Third Social Sector Platform of Castilla y León to the NGOs of Burgos
The Third Sector Platform of Castilla y León (PTSCyL) has conveyed this Wednesday its “firm” endorsement, support and recognition of the work carried out by the entities of the third social sector, with an express mention of the entities that are dedicated to providing care. of immigrants in Burgos, Europa Press reports.
Through a press release, the Third Sector Platform has also warned that the elimination of the collaboration agreements that ACCEM, Burgos Acoge and Atalaya Intercultural have maintained with the Burgos City Council “will put the continuity” of their work at risk. and the benefits they bring to society.
The Platform has claimed the need to maintain the financing that these entities have received “for years” in order to guarantee the continuity “of their valuable services.” The president of the platform, Francisco J. Sardón, has insisted in this regard that the work of third sector social entities and immigrant entities “is irreplaceable” and has defended that their impact on society “is immeasurable.”
“Not only do they benefit immigrants, but they also strengthen the social fabric of our Community,” stated the president of the Platform, reiterating that these organizations are “essential” for the construction of “a more inclusive and diverse society” since they They provide “crucial services that facilitate the integration and well-being of immigrants.”
To this they have added that the entities of the third social sector work in networks to offer education, vocational training, legal support and social assistance, a collaboration between organizations that allows “maximizing the impact and ensuring that immigrants can develop their potential and contribute to the enrichment cultural and economic of the country.”
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