The spokesman for the Regionalist Parliamentary Group, Pedro Hernando, has called on the autonomous Government of the PP to sit down to negotiate the amendments filed by the PRC in order to be able to bring the Cantabria Housing Law forward.
Hernando spoke thus this Monday in the Plenary, during the debate on a Vox initiative that has been shot down by the rest of the parties and that urged the regional Executive to withdraw the draft Cantabria Housing Law, currently in parliamentary processing, and open a new process of dialogue taking as a basis the agreements reached between PP and Vox in other communities.
The regionalist has criticized that the Vox proposal calls for a rule that is already following its course in the Chamber to be withdrawn and "replaced by closed-door negotiation".
He recalled that, just as his group had already stated, the draft Housing Law was "insufficient, limited" and "lacked ambition," but he stressed that they opted to "amend it, not withdraw it".
These amendments, he detailed, seek to increase the housing supply, lower prices, fix population, and facilitate access to housing for young people and the middle classes.
In this context, Hernando took the opportunity to urge the 'populars' to open negotiations on the PRC's proposals. "The law has been here for a year, when the hell are they going to call the Regionalist Party to negotiate its amendments? When are they going to do it? Because you already know, 15 votes do not get that law passed," he warned.
"If you want that law to go ahead, as we regionalists want, call, accept our amendments, and the law will be able to go ahead," he concluded.
Rejection of the withdrawal of the Housing Law
The rest of the groups agreed in defending the route of the amendments over the withdrawal of the text.
The PP spokesman, Juan José Alonso, described Vox's proposal as "indefensible" and considered that it "only stages its lack of interest," having been unable, he said, to present "a single concrete proposal".
He emphasized that, in order to reach agreements, it is "fundamental" to formulate amendments, as the rest of the opposition groups have done.
"We will or will not reach an agreement to approve the Housing Law, but be assured that this Government is going to continue acting by promoting housing under ownership or rental arrangements, as was also shown by the Budget also presented for 2027 last Friday, because the Government of President Buruaga does its work, brings laws to this Parliament so that they can be debated, refined, discussed and an agreement reached for the benefit of all Cantabrians," he has pointed out.
PSOE deputy Pablo Zuloaga has denounced that Vox's "national priority" is "to turn access to housing into a border between people, into a war of rights". In his view, it is "compatible" to protect owners and, at the same time, families that cannot access a home.
He has pointed out that the Housing Law is "improvable", which is why his group has filed amendments. "Withdrawing a law does not put one more home on the market, does not reduce rent, does not help a young person to become independent, does not provide a solution to any family in Cantabria and pitting citizens against one another either," he has defended.
From Vox, deputy Armando Blanco has explained that the purpose of his non-legislative proposal (PNL) is to articulate a "common front" to "halt this unscrupulous and unprincipled left that the failed Government of Sánchez the psychopath represents", "to return common sense to the markets and put an end to this escalation of prices that is affecting housing".
For the party, "the protection of the most vulnerable cannot become an excuse to leave the victims of squatting unprotected".
"We find ourselves before a text that is improvable, little focused on the practical and real construction of housing and with a weak defense of private property," Blanco has said, who has told the PP that, although it votes against his proposals, it will continue "with the doors open to achieve the best Housing Law in Cantabria as soon as possible".
Fibromyalgia: update of the protocol in Cantabria
At another point in the agenda, the plenary session, which began with a minute of silence for the victims of the Toledo train accident, has approved a Vox motion urging the Government to complete the work of the multidisciplinary group on fibromyalgia and to approve, publish and implement in the Cantabrian Health Service the update of the protocol for the care and early diagnosis of the disease before the Plenary Session of March 29, the last of the legislature.
The motion also calls for the conclusions of that group to be sent to the Parliament Health Committee and for a specific training and updating program for Primary Care professionals to be promoted, in the first quarter of 2027, counting for this on the Cantabrian Fibromyalgia Association (ACEF).
The initiative has gone ahead with the support of the PP and the abstention of PSOE and PRC, which had raised amendments that were ultimately rejected.
From Vox they have recalled that in May 2025 the Chamber gave the green light to a PNL to put into motion the plan against fibromyalgia and they have lamented that, after 16 months, "everything remains the same", a criticism shared by both socialists and regionalists.
The PP, which has admitted the delay in the execution of the parliamentary mandate, has defended that the Health Department "has had to start from scratch" because, after eight years of government by regionalists and socialists, "there was nothing".
Reinforcement of Civil Protection volunteering
Likewise, a PNL promoted by the PRC has been approved to urge the regional Executive to increase financial support for the voluntary Civil Protection groups and to improve their resources and working conditions.
The proposal, partially modified by an amendment from the PSOE, has had the rejection of the PP and of the non-attached deputy Cristóbal Palacio, and the abstention of Vox. With the current balance of forces, this result would have meant the fall of the initiative.
However, the absence of the PP deputy and mayor of Santander, Gema Igual, who has not been able to attend the Plenary due to coinciding with the municipal session, has allowed the proposal to go through.
From the PRC they consider that, despite the approval, "it is not going to be fulfilled", something they describe as "a pity" because, as they have indicated, the text includes the demands conveyed by the volunteer groups themselves.
PNL calls on the Government to, before the year ends, modify the decree regulating Civil Protection volunteer organizations, approved in 2021 under the PRC-PSOE coalition government and which, although it represented "a great advance," needs to be "updated" and to correct "things that fail."
Although PP and Vox have highlighted the "altruistic" work of Civil Protection volunteers, neither has supported the regionalist proposal. Both have alleged, at least in part, that they perceive a marked partisan bias in the text.
The PP maintains that the initiative "has a lot of politics" and considers that what is being demanded is due either to "a political urgency" on the part of the PRC or to "poor legislative practice" when it was in Government, or even "both things at once."
In addition, the populars argue that "in any case, the intended modifications cannot be understood without a complementary regulation of the broader regulatory framework as they affect state powers."
Vox, for its part, has accused the PRC of having made a "partisan and clientelist use" of these groups and of having "caudilloed" them in certain municipalities, words that the regionalists have flatly rejected and that they consider an affront to the members of Civil Protection.