The Cortes of Castilla-La Mancha have rejected this Thursday the total amendments registered by Vox and the PP against the Bill on the General Budgets of the Junta for 2027, thanks to the majority vote of the Socialist group, which has halted both initiatives.
From Vox, the deputy David Moreno has criticized that "one more year" the regional government is carrying out "a disastrous management of public resources, which are used for everything except meeting the real needs of households, of entrepreneurs and of workers". In his view, this is "a fraud against the residents of Castilla-La Mancha".
He has defended that this set of accounts deserves the total amendment submitted by his formation, "because they are not going to benefit either families or small and medium-sized enterprises", insisting that these accounts are far from reflecting "a favorable economic situation for the region".
For the PP, the deputy Santiago Serrano has described the budgets as "the most sizable in the history of the region", but he has underlined that "they foresee raising more than ever, investing less than the previous year, reducing support for the productive economy and swelling the government structure".
Along these lines, Serrano has denounced that there is "an administration of inertia" that "spends more to get the same thing", which he has described as "an authentic failure in economic and financial policy".
He added that Castilla-La Mancha is "the fourth community with the lowest per capita income per inhabitant, with almost 7,000 euros of distance from the national average and more than 14,000 from the European average".
PSOE responds to criticisms from PP and Vox
In the Socialist turn, the deputy Ana Isabel Abengózar began her remarks by reproaching Moreno for calling the regional president "Emiliano García Fraude". "I could call him David Modorro, because you constantly fall asleep in the parliamentary seat".
After reading the PP total amendment, Abengózar has branded it as "the same old thing". As she said, "they do the usual thing, build a narrative in which nothing works, that Castilla-La Mancha you would like, in which the worse it gets, the better". In addition, she has accused the Popular Party of inventing "each and every one of the figures to support their narrative".
Treasury defends the accounts and the economic model
The Minister of Finance, Public Administrations and Digital Transformation, Juan Alfonso Ruiz Molina, has lashed out at the opposition for, in his view, wanting to “very little” for his land “when they belittle it,” lamenting that they do not have “credibility” to support the image they draw of the region.
“If I were an investor who wanted to invest my money in Castilla-La Mancha, reading your amendment in its entirety, I would run away,” he said.
Ruiz Molina stressed that “all items increase,” especially those linked to the state of well-being, denying that “there is more debt” and asserting that it is a “balanced” budget.
According to the minister, with these figures, the regional Executive manages to attract “companies and new citizens to come and live in Castilla-La Mancha.”
He also emphasized that “it is a budgetary project that does not contain any more taxes,” and that it refutes what the PP has said, because “there are no more cuts.”
Rejection of amendments to the Accompanying Measures Law
Meanwhile, the Socialist majority in the full session also rejected the Vox and PP amendments in their entirety to the Law on Tax, Administrative and Simplification Measures for Castilla-La Mancha, known “vulgarly,” according to the Minister of Finance, as an omnibus law because it covers a plurality of matters and presents heterogeneous content.
Based on its provisions, Ruiz Molina highlighted that it complies “with all” the principles of legal certainty, as well as the requirements of clarity and normative coherence, “to the extent that it is well structured and complies with constitutional rules.”
“I think it is an ambitious draft law because it also seeks to adapt the regional legislation to current needs and demands of citizens and businesses, and also to the region’s economic and social reality, a goal that the PP and Vox also mention in their amendments in their entirety, so we cannot agree more.”
Vox calls for more clarity on the economic impact
Vox deputy Francisco José Cobo warned that the “real problem” with this accompanying measures law does not lie only in the measures proposed by the PSOE, “but rather in the lack of clarity about how its economic consequences fit into the 2027 budgets.” “We understand that there are five issues that you, the socialist Government, must explain,” he said.
"The Government presents us with an accompanying law by way of emergency, with changes to taxes, procedures and rules of very different nature. But before asking us to run to approve it, it should tell us something fundamental and elementary—what specific problem it solves, how much it costs and how the 2027 accounts fit together," he has delved into.
PP questions the substance and form of the rule
PP deputy Santiago Serrano has explained that his group’s amendment to this law is not only due to an opposition stance, but because the rule "forces these Courts to be reduced to the bare minimum expression or to be a mere validator of everything that the Government proposes," all of this "without the debate and without the necessary analysis of a law with these characteristics."
"Therefore, we are against much of what is proposed in the law, but above all, we are against a procedure that, with haste and defects, what it does is dilute the basic and democratic parliamentary function of these Courts and of this Parliament," he has stated.
PSOE deputy Silvia Fernández began by breaking down Vox’s full amendment, concluding that "practically all" the party’s talking points focus on discrediting the regional Government.
Likewise, she reproached the PP for claiming that this project "is extensive, of extraordinary technical complexity, and that it lacks justification."
"This law consists of reviewing, eliminating unnecessary obstacles, reducing bureaucratic burdens and facilitating the activity of citizens, businesses and professionals to ease the burden on the pockets of Castilian-Manchegos," she defended, emphasizing that it has not sprung from nothing and that it has followed a prior procedure.