The poisoned transition in the Pamplona City Council

Ten days have passed since the approval in the Pamplona City Council (203,000 inhabitants) of the motion of censure against Cristina Ibarrola (UPN), agreed between EH Bildu and the Navarrese socialists. He abertzale Joseba Asiron (Pamplona, ​​61 years old) already leads a tripartite Government with Geroa Bai and Contigo-Zurekin which, in its first days in office, has approved the extension of the Budgets and which, as expected, this Monday will announce the reinforcement of the resources for homeless people as temperatures drop.

Your Executive's immediate challenge is to approve the new Accounts, but first they have to land in their respective areas. However, according to what they claim, they do not have the support of the previous team to do so. The transition has been practically non-existent, according to the City Council, because only in a few areas has a meeting been held between the outgoing and incoming officials. The most striking case is that of Ibarrola, which has not responded to the calls or the whatsapp Asiron and, as he has stated publicly, he has no intention of doing so. The Christmas dates and vacations are not helping to recover normality in a city council that this Monday celebrates the first extraordinary plenary session of this legislature. A new stage of management begins that will serve as a test bed in the national territory because it is the first time that EH Bildu governs thanks to socialist votes.

For now, the beginning has not been easy. “I cannot speak of an orderly transition,” Asirón stated in SER, “because that transition is not existing. We have found formatted computers and I would say that even the office supplies have been taken.” In some specific areas there has been contact between the outgoing and incoming teams, but it has been minimal. In an interview on the same station, Ibarrola acknowledges that he has “no interest in talking to people who lie in every word they say,” but assures that the transition has occurred: “He has all the files of all the work we have done.” very intense fact during these six months. It has everything transparently in all areas. We left everything perfect,” he assured.

The first few days are being very busy, despite the Christmas holidays. The coming cold wave has pushed the City Council to sign the first measures to reinforce resources for the homeless and we will have to wait until Thursday the 11th for the first ordinary plenary session to be held, where two new councilors will take office – one of UPN and another from the PSN—. In parallel, the groups that make up the tripartite organize priorities in their respective management areas and it is expected that in the coming days they will meet to start working on the draft of the next Budgets. For now, the Local Government Board has extended last year's Accounts. The tripartite still has to negotiate internally and no deadline has been set to move them forward, although it is intended that they coincide with the approval in the regional Parliament of the Navarra Accounts, scheduled for the end of February or the beginning of March. . They are two different levels of management, but those who prepare the budgets are the same groups, so it is expected that they will follow a similar line. While at the regional level the socialists need EH Bildu to give the green light to the accounts, at the municipal level it is the Abertzale coalition that needs the PSN.

There is no initial draft of the accounts, although the new mayor has made his lines of work clear on several occasions. The priority is to combat the situation of homeless people, “a challenge of the first magnitude,” he said, to which he adds the promotion of a Housing Plan to build a thousand residences at affordable prices. The measures are included in the programmatic agreement signed by the groups that make up the tripartite, but they are also in line with what was agreed with the socialists – who are not within the municipal government – to carry out the motion of censure against Ibarrola, therefore that the PSN is expected to facilitate the approval of the accounts.

The relationship between the four municipal groups – EH Bildu, PSN, Geroa Bai and Contigo Zurekin (this coalition did not obtain representation in the previous legislature) – is and has been fluid during the last four and a half years. Asiron himself has publicly acknowledged that the synergies between these formations began to form “the day after the 2019 elections.” “We have been in opposition to Mr. Maya for four years. [Enrique, de UPN] working hard and that is where trust has been built.” Throughout the legislature it will be essential for PSN and EH Bildu to negotiate because the votes of the socialists are necessary to carry out the different measures. Among the foreseeable disagreements is the design of language policies. Basque and Spanish are co-official languages ​​in the city and both groups have committed to seeking a consensus to guarantee Basque treatment in accordance with the demand and sociolinguistic reality of Pamplona.

It is the beginning of a legislature that will serve as a test bed at the national level because it is the first time that EH Bildu governs thanks to socialist votes. However, in 2019, María Chivite (PSN) was sworn in as president of the Regional Community thanks to the abstention of several parliamentarians from the Abertzale left – although the socialists maintain that no one asked them -, when the national agreements of the PSOE with EH Bildu had not yet been produced. Since then, Chivite has carried out all the Budgets with the support or abstention of this group. It also remains to be seen the impact that these agreements will have in Euskadi or on the central government's pact policy. For now, in the neighboring community, on the verge of upcoming but still undated elections, the PSE-EE insists that it will not make a candidate lehendakari. abertzale. For Asiron, it is a matter of time before these pacts are normalized. “EH Bildu is doing very important work in city councils, in Parliament and also in Madrid. He has been gaining prestige in state politics that is undeniable. We increasingly have more support outside our area of ​​work, which is Euskal Herria. I think that is what has made, little by little, the state PSOE see that EH Bildu is a reliable partner to work with,” he noted.

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