The PP and Vox agree in the analysis that 2023 will be a year of economic crisis, which facilitates an exceptional situation in politics: the two parties, which will compete to seduce the same voters in the May elections, are willing to negotiate this fall some new budgets for next year. “Not approving them would be irresponsible,” says a source from the highest rank in the far-right formation. That position, transmitted this Tuesday by the Vox spokeswoman, Rocío Monasterio, to the regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has diluted the doubts with which some of the conservative leader’s trusted men faced the negotiation of the project.
“As the end of the legislature and the elections are near, the scenario changes,” recognized a popular source before Ayuso met this Monday with all the opposition spokesmen. “That’s why we don’t know if approving the Budgets will be viable,” he added, recalling that the PP does not have an absolute majority, and that it needs the extreme right to carry out its proposals. “For this reason, in 2021, when the current budgets were designed, they became very flexible, in case they had to be extended for 2023,” he explained.
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However, Ayuso’s appointment with the Monastery at the Royal Post Office, where Mónica García (Más Madrid), Juan Lobato (PSOE) and Alejandra Jacinto (Unidas Podemos) will also attend this Tuesday afternoon, has cleared up a pen all those fears and uncertainties.
“We want to seek resources for the middle and lower classes, which are the ones that are going to suffer the most from the policies of this government. [de Pedro Sánchez] who always chooses the wrong path”, explained Monasterio at a subsequent press conference. “That means a reduction in ineffective public spending and taxes,” he continued, demanding a reduction in personal income tax, a shock plan to help the self-employed, eliminate 70 million in institutional advertising, the 23 million for the green arch project, or reduce spending on rent and counseling. “If they go along that line, Vox will approve the budgets,” he has promised.
Coincidence in diagnosis
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A commitment that Enrique Ossorio, number two of the regional government, has celebrated almost immediately. “We have agreed on the diagnosis of many things”, has recognized the regional vice president. “We are concerned about the price of energy, the increase in mortgages, inflation…”, he continued. “[Monasterio] It has raised something for us that we share, that we deal with the self-employed. He has reminded us of his compensation plan and we are going to analyze it, because it may be necessary, ”he added. “And we have talked about the willingness to negotiate the Budgets with the Vox group.”
It is not a minor issue. Since he came to power for the first time, in 2019, Ayuso has only managed to approve the public accounts on one occasion: it was in 2021, and thanks to Vox, the only possible partner he has in the regional Assembly. This project, which is the current one, may become outdated if it is not replaced by a new one: it was designed in 2021, and if it were extended it would have to serve as a response to the acute crisis that PP and Vox predict in 2023.
With the aim of replacing the current accounts with updated ones, the ministries have already started working before the summer on the preparation of their proposals. These documents have already reached the Ministry of Economy and Finance, led by Javier Fernández-Lasquetty, in charge of harmonizing all the wishes and requests of his government colleagues in a coordinated plan.
And not only those: it will also have to leave a budget gap for the demands that Vox can make, which the PP is also courting to approve before the elections the 15 legal projects that are still pending in the regional Chamber.
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