The Popular and Vox parliamentary groups, which support the coalition Executive in Castilla y León, have ruled out this Tuesday supporting a motion by the Socialist Group with eight proposals on dependency matters that, according to Salamanca MP Noelia Merino, sought “to move from announcements to specific commitments.”
PP representative María Belén Vélez Puente has responded to the socialists with a direct message: “Honourable members of the PSOE, before demanding that the Junta, demand from your own Government—the central one—that it pays what corresponds to it. They can’t come here to demand more resources while they remain silent in the face of the underfunding that this Community suffers.” She has stressed that the Community continues to wait for the central Executive to comply with the 50 percent co-financing agreement, noting that the Junta contributed 931 million in 2025 compared with the central Government’s 341 million.
Vélez has accused the PSOE of putting forward a “failure narrative” around the Dependency Law in Castilla y León and has rejected that there is a collapse of the system or shortcomings in planning. “There is always room for improvement, but one thing is improving a system and quite another is to devalue the work carried out and use people with dependencies and their families for partisan purposes,” she concluded.
Along the same lines, Vox representative María Luisa Calvo has criticized the trend of “selling rights on paper that then do not have sufficient funding to become a reality.” In her view, “This is not about approving more laws for taking photographs; it is about people with dependencies receiving help when they need it, not when the Administration decides that their turn has come.” She has reiterated her commitment to prioritizing care, resources, and solutions “over more bickering, more taxes, and more promises.”
The person behind the motion, Noelia Merino, has expressed her displeasure at the rejection by PP and Vox: “I’m leaving disappointed because I see that there’s no heart.” She said she had expected the two groups to reconsider their position and back the Socialist initiative, which included, among other points, that the Junta proceed to return the money “unduly collected” for co-payment from the major dependents through a “clear, agile and effective procedure” that prevents those affected from having to resort to the judicial route.
The socialist text also proposed to present a “public and itemized plan” for the use of the additional 227 million euros provided for in the state funding for the minimum level of dependency in Castilla y León in 2027, as well as to draw up a multi-year investment and personnel plan in dependency in order to maintain, modernize, and expand the network of services, infrastructures, and equipment, and to have “sufficient professionals to guarantee quality care”.
From the Mixed Group, the León resident Rosa María Quintanilla has put forward her support for the PSOE motion and has described as “a historic opportunity” the arrival of those additional 227 million euros from the State to the Community for the refinancing of the minimum level of dependency with a view to 2027.
In this vein, she has demanded from the Junta “a public and itemized plan” to ensure that “down to the last euro cent” of those funds is used to reduce waiting lists, “to improve assistance for rural home care especially and to boost public resources”.
For his part, the Soria ¡Ya! parliamentary representative, Ángel Ceña, has turned to the lyrics of a Manolo García song to urge the Castilla y León Junta to save its “love words” and to return the amounts charged improperly to the severely dependent. “Members of the PP, they have extraordinary ease in taking the side of citizens when there are elections to ask them for their vote and then abandon them when they govern,” he reproached.