The Burgos City Council will withdraw the 119,000 euros of aid to the NGOs ACCEM, Burgos Acoge and Atalaya Intercultural, considering that they contribute “to the call effect” and to “illegal immigration.” This was stated this Friday by the vice mayor of the city, Fernando Martínez-Acitores (Vox), who appeared at a press conference to defend the municipal budgets for 2025.
The municipal accounts for 2025 will have the IBI bonus for large families, delay the entry of the garbage rate to 2026, incorporation of the family perspective, study of the tax reduction plan and bonuses to encourage the implementation, conservation and transmission of business. Also 50,000 euros for “a bullfighting fair” that will consist of a bullfight.
The Vox spokesperson in the Burgos City Council has defined the accounts for 2025 as “the most realistic in history” and that, compared to the “domestic economy”, Burgos will not live “above its possibilities.”
Cáritas will be spared from the ‘snip’ of aid to NGOs, which will have 19,000 euros. Regarding the entity linked to the Church, Martínez-Acitores has not finished specifying the reasons although he has assured that it does not “collaborate with the call effect.” For the vice mayor, after studying the purpose of the agreement signed with the organizations and what the funds were for, his “conclusion” is that “in one case it is justified and in us it is not.”
During his speech, Martínez-Acitores wanted to downplay the importance of the amount withdrawn from NGOs. “We are talking about 119,000 euros out of a total budget of 250 million euros,” he said. Asked about the importance of this statement, the Vox councilor pointed out that “in reality, where we need to emphasize is dignity, rather than quantity.”
Immigration, “the huge problem” in Burgos, according to the City Council
At the press conference, Martínez-Acitores has tried to justify a new controversy against migrants by pointing out that they are trying to do their “grant of sand” to the “very big problem of” illegal immigration “. In June of this year the vice mayor 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.” 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, Mayor Cristina Ayala, of the PP, had to disavow her government partner and recalled that the orders to the Police are only given by her. Vox’s idea was considered by the Ministry of Migration as “interference” in matters that fall under the jurisdiction of the national police and “with xenophobic purposes.”
“Illegal immigration is the slavery of the 21st century”
In Martínez-Acitores’ dissertation to justify withdrawing aid of “119,000 euros out of a total budget of 250 million euros,” the Vox councilor indicated that he considers that “illegal immigration is the slavery of the 21st century.” “The problem of people dying in the Mediterranean worries us a lot,” he added.
“Many immigrants vote for Vox. Not only do they vote for us, but we have affiliated supporters right here, in the city of Burgos. Supporters, members, organic positions who are immigrants,” he noted.
“That they arrive here and that they are in terrible conditions, that they live in ghettos, that they have almost nothing to eat, worries us a lot, but we want to confront it at its roots.” From the Burgos City Council, as explained, who “reduces the call effect” to avoid this situation. To this end, the vice mayor has indicated that “those budget items” have been allocated to other social purposes of the Department of Seniors, Youth, and Children.
With those “119,000 euros out of a total budget of 250 million euros”, as the Vox representative has indicated, the extreme right cuts aid to different Burgos NGOs within municipal powers. The PP has accepted although it is an agreement that is the result of “a negotiation, not blackmail or a threat”, as indicated this Thursday by the spokesperson for the Government team, Andrea Ballesteros (PP).
“It was a request from Vox in the negotiation of the budgets and the PP does not agree, because those NGOs do a very good job, but this is a coalition government and surely the budget that we present is not ideal even for the PP not even for Vox,” Ballesteros explained.
Ballesteros explained that in the draft budget they maintain the same amount as this year, aid for international cooperation, which was also reduced by half at the request of Vox, remaining at less than 500,000, in the negotiation of the 2024 budget, the first of the year. PP-Vox coalition government after the 2023 elections. The only thing that the 2025 budget will include for NGOs will be an item to comply with the obligation derived from this year, since 30% of the aid is pending payment, to which waiting for them to justify the expenses.
PSOE sees the measure as “a very important damage to the city”
The councilor of the PSOE, Sonia Rodríguez, has regretted that the withdrawal of aid represents “a very important damage to the city”, since “many residents of Burgos are going to stop receiving these specialized services.”
The socialist has pointed out that the PP “has not been diligent in its defense of municipal interests” and has given in to “the pressures of Vox” which, without further information, is exclusively based “on slogans that come from Madrid.”
In the PSOE they have warned of the cuts of the PP and Vox in matters in which the radical populist right is against, such as the elimination of aid to the Coordinator for the Recovery of the Historical Memory of Burgos and the Chair of the University or the halving the international cooperation budget in the budgets for 2024.
Rodríguez has reproached PP and Vox for breaking collaboration agreements that have existed for “decades” and that are “fundamental” for the normalized development of the city’s social services. The councilor has pointed out the sudden “change of criteria” of the government team since the City Council expanded the agreements last year.
The work of these NGOs, as the socialist councilor explained, “is not only developed thanks to the municipal contribution”, although they are “essential” there are other administrations, companies and individuals that contribute. “It is not about figures, if it is a lot or a little, because the City Council actually contributes a small amount for the benefit that the city and its citizens obtain,” Rodríguez clarified.
Regarding the vice mayor’s words in which he says that NGOs contribute “to the so-called effect, the socialist has asserted that they only demonstrate “the astonishing ignorance of a municipal political official towards the work carried out by the associations that work in Burgos.”
The socialist councilor has indicated that the arrival of immigrants to Burgos has “always” been linked to job opportunities. In a city where the unemployment rate was 8.31% in September 2024, the relationship between NGOs and companies is necessary for migrants to join the labor market “more effectively with training and advice actions.” regarding hiring.” “Companies also trust these entities and turn to them to improve their workforce or because they have needs that they cannot cover with current offers,” he added.
The spokesperson for the Municipal Socialist Group, Daniel de la Rosa, offered this Friday to the Popular Party to support the budgets in exchange for them breaking with Vox. This offer was also made by the former mayor of Burgos last September when the general secretary of the party, Ignacio Garriga, warned that his party “will not tremble” about breaking the local government pacts.
NGOs study how to care for migrants after the withdrawal of aid
The NGOs that serve migrants in Burgos are studying how to continue serving the hundreds of vulnerable people they have helped until now without municipal resources. Accem sources told EFE this Friday that the entity received 28,188 euros last year through this agreement, thanks to which it has provided individual care, for more than 20 years, to 5,848 people of 96 different nationalities. This has made possible its full insertion into the city, “contributing to social cohesion and intercultural coexistence in Burgos society.” Another NGO, Burgos Acoge, served two thousand seven hundred and forty-six people last year, according to sources consulted by this newspaper.
From Accem they have assured that they are saddened to lose “the long and excellent” collaboration with the municipal administration, since they consider that it has provided “a great service to the society of Burgos in this long history”, which has represented “an important support to the social fabric of the city.” This has been recognized, they emphasize, with different awards such as the Meninas Castilla y León 2023 Recognition from the Government Delegation.
Regarding what will happen now, Accem has stressed that its priority “is always people,” which is why it is studying how to solve the situation to continue serving migrants in vulnerable situations.
On the other hand, the Intercultural Watchtower Association, attached to the Jesuit Migrant Service, received 13,000 euros last year thanks to this agreement, with which they have assisted 385 migrants in vulnerable situations, according to sources from the entity. The majority of the beneficiaries of this aid are Latin American people (especially from Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and Ecuador) and Moroccans, many of them in an irregular administrative situation.
Of the total number of people served, 343 are minors and young people to whom they provide school support: they provide them with the material that their families cannot give them and educational reinforcement, in addition to other activities such as summer camps or leisure resources for adolescents. The association is also responsible for providing shelter to 42 migrants without resources, in three apartments where families live and a shelter home where other people without family responsibilities reside.
From the entity they have claimed to feel insecurity and helplessness when seeing the City Council’s resources cut and they assure that, beyond the financial contribution, the worst thing for them is the risk of losing the connection that they have built with the citizens for 21 years, when They began their work in the capital of Burgos.
Looking ahead to next year, without the resources of the municipal corporation, they will try to continue serving the same number of people or “as many as possible”, although they anticipate that they will have to cut resources, such as the school supplies they provide to families. .
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