The PSOE-A general secretary, María Jesús Montero, has reproached this Thursday the president of the Junta of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno (PP-A), that, "in the year 2023, he postponed by one day" the full debate of the 2024 Junta Budgets project "so that she could attend" the Latin Grammys gala held then in Seville, while, by contrast, "the call for a general strike" did not have her considering it "a sufficient reason" to change the date of the debate on the 2027 accounts, finally held this past Wednesday in the Plenary Session of the Parliament.
The controversy over the scheduling of the full debate of the Andalusian Budget Bill project for 2027 on the same day as the general strike called by CCOO, UGT and the Union of Tenants for November 11, as well as the absence in that Plenary Session of deputies from the left-wing groups in support of the strike, has marked the face-to-face between María Jesús Montero and Juanma Moreno in the session controlling the Andalusian Government.
Montero has criticized that Moreno rejected modifying the date of the full debate of the 2027 Budget— a request made by the Socialist Group for coinciding with the strike—because, according to the PSOE-A leader, "he intended to sabotage" the union mobilization.
The socialist executive has also accused the president of the Junta that "he hides the Budget debate the way he hid" his "fake" investiture from last summer before announcing his government pact with Vox, and she has added that he acts this way because "the growth of the Andalusian budget" is due to transfers from the "evil" president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, "because the transfers of resources from the funding system have increased by the Government of Spain, as the allocations devoted to housing or to dependency have increased", as the PSOE-A leader has insisted.
Montero has argued that "this is what" the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (Airef) says, which warns that "if it were not for this increase, for the tax policies of the Government of Spain," Moreno's Executive "would have had to cut its public accounts by more than 280 million euros".
Moreno accuses Montero of being "disoriented" in Andalusia
The president of Andalusia has responded to Montero, assuring that she is “out of place” in the Parliament of Andalusia “after being the most powerful woman in the world” as vice president of the Government of Spain, and after having obtained “the worst result in the history of the PSOE” in some Andalusian regional elections.
Next, the PSOE-A leader has reproached Moreno for the PP sharing with Vox a strategy to “criminalize” the unions, which “have been called ‘trash’, ‘mafia’, ‘horse-stabled’ and ‘prawn-eaters’ with a photo in the ‘tweet’ of the PP, which is shameless and should be ashamed of itself,” as Montero has thrown at him, adding that she should ask for “forgiveness from the unions, which represent the workers.”
Montero also took advantage of her intervention to criticize that, in this Wednesday’s plenary session, the reform of the law of the Andalusian Chamber of Accounts promoted by PP-A and Vox was pushed forward, which, in her view, “replaces plurality and proportionality with the bulldozer of the three fifths majority,” and to criticize the election of a new Andalusian Ombudsperson — Marta Bosquet — “freshly out after the dismissal of the Council of Government presided over” by the ‘popular’ leader.
In addition, the socialist leader has questioned that the new director of the Andalusian Council of Transparency, Ana María Vielba, “had to take leave” as a PP member “three days before” her appointment, and that the general director of the RTVA, Juan de Dios Mellado, attended last Sunday a PP rally in Málaga to “applaud” the president of the Board itself.
The PSOE-A general secretary has framed all these decisions in the “dangerous drift that Andalusian institutions continue to follow” under Moreno’s mandate, a situation that Montero has described as “a disgrace,” as she concluded.
In her final reply, the president has counterattacked by reminding the socialist leader of the “corruption” allegedly linked to the PSOE, and has emphasized that she “applauded” in 2010 the then president of the Board, José Antonio Griñán, when, in the face of another general strike, he said that the Parliament “should never call a strike, because democracy doesn’t take vacations, nor is it paused, nor is it suspended.”
Moreno has wrapped up his remarks by addressing Montero to tell her that she is "personalized incoherence," and that she "did not want to be" in Parliament this past Wednesday "for many reasons," including that "she does not have an alternative Budgets plan," and "she would not have dared to confront the Minister of Finance," Carolina España. "And, for that reason, it was good for you to go to an election rally," the Andalusian president has concluded.