The Cortes of Aragón have given the green light this Thursday, October 8, in the plenary session, to a non-legislative proposal presented by the PP to censure the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun. In the same text, it is urged to immediately execute the ruling that orders the return to Aragón of the mural paintings from the monastery of Santa María de Sijena (Huesca). The initiative has moved forward with the votes of PP, Vox, CHA, and A-TE, while PSOE and IU have positioned themselves against it.
Through this proposal, the regional parliament censures Urtasun "for recurring in his attacks and questioning of a firm judicial ruling, for publicly defending the alleged infeasibility of the return of the paintings from Sijena, and for politically aligning with the obstructionist strategy of the MNAC and the Generalitat of Catalonia."
The text states that these statements "also constitute a new and serious attack on the independence of the Judiciary, which adds to the repeated attempts by the Government of Pedro Sánchez to discredit judges and courts when their rulings do not respond to their political interests, eroding the separation of powers and the trust of citizens in democratic institutions."
Likewise, the Cortes demand from the Government of Spain, the Generalitat of Catalonia, and the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya "the full, immediate, and without further delays compliance with the firm ruling that orders the return of the mural paintings from the Chapter Room of the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Sijena."
The agreement also demands "the strict respect of all deadlines set in the judicial execution schedule, rejecting any attempt at suspension, extension, reinterpretation, or covert non-compliance and requiring the Government of Spain to use its representation in the Board of the MNAC and guarantee the return of the paintings to Aragón."
The PP deputy, Elena Allué, has been in charge of defending the proposal, assuring that "if anything has characterized the two legislatures of Sánchez's Government, it has been the deterioration of institutional respect for the judiciary by almost all members of the Government."
He denounced that "we are talking about questioning rulings, not respecting judicial resolutions, putting all their decisions under suspicion, discrediting judicial resolutions when they do not suit the Socialist Party" and that "within all this amalgam, in eight years, Sánchez's government has given us all kinds of typology of ministers".
In his intervention, he listed that "there are ministers who pay prostitutes with public funds, there are those who prefer political brawls to trains arriving on time, there are ministers who have lunch with harassers, ministers who do not respect judicial decisions and that even some of them accuse saying that there are judges who commit malfeasance".
He added that "there are also those who are part of or instigate the sewers of the Socialist Party who pay or try to pay some to give a scare to the judge who is instructing the case of the president's brother".
In Allué's opinion, Urtasun "absolutely does not respect any final ruling issued by the judge of the Sijena assets and allows himself the luxury of qualifying it as a disgrace" and, moreover, "calls for the insubordination of the Catalan institutions to not comply with either the resolution or the stipulated deadlines or the resolutions stipulated in the deadlines set by that final ruling".
The parliamentarian reminded the socialists that "judges are there to apply the law and they are there to do so, even if you do not like it, even if you do not like it when it does not suit you", emphasizing that "rulings are not negotiated, they are not reinterpreted, they are complied with, and the Sijena assets are Aragonese and must return to Aragón".
COMPLY WITH LAWS AND RULINGS
On behalf of Vox, Lorena García reproached that "Sánchez's Government has once again demonstrated that it does not want Aragón, we do not matter to them at all", while "the Catalan Administration continues to violate the rulings". She insisted that "laws and rulings are complied with, period, they should not be questioned".
On behalf of CHA, Mascún Ariste stated that his party openly disagrees with the minister. He raised what measures the Government of Aragón is adopting to prepare for "the day after the return" because, he said, "bringing back the paintings is not the final point, it is the beginning".
From Aragón-Teruel Existe, Tomás Guitarte has recalled that the chamber already spoke on this issue in July 2025 and again last June, lamenting that "there is not a single new measure, nor a euro, nor a technician." In his view, Urtasun "fits them like a glove."
Guitarte has argued that the appropriate reaction is to force the minister to "make a move" and has suggested that the Ministry activate the Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain "at the service of the execution" of the ruling.
The PSOE deputy, Darío Villagrasa, has requested to divide the vote in order to support the section related to the return of the paintings from Sijena.
He has questioned the regional government asking "where is the budgetary commitment to Sijena; where is the director plan that does not exist; where is the bet on the Monegros region; and where is the work with the royal pantheons."
Finally, the IU deputy, Marta Abengochea, has maintained that Urtasun's words "do not attack the independence of powers of the State" and has also demanded the separate voting of the two points of the initiative.