Vox in the Community of Madrid has reiterated this Monday its demand to implement a single University Entrance Exam (PAU) throughout the national territory, a proposal to which the PP has stressed that it could only be carried out with the Ministry of Education.
The parties made their statements at the press conference following the Spokespersons' Board this Monday, the day on which the entrance exams began in Madrid, the first autonomous community to start these tests.
The spokesperson for Vox, Isabel Pérez Moñino, has questioned the existence of 17 different exam models in Spain and has also criticized the disparity between "correction criteria in some regions and others," as well as the different calendars set by each autonomous community.
She also pointed out that in February 2024, the PP and Vox agreed on a Non-Binding Motion (PNL) to urge the central government to launch a test that would guarantee "the equality of Spanish students regardless of where it is taken."
"The PP will also have to fulfill its commitments, because what it cannot do is launch slogans from public office and then not implement the policies and agreements it reaches with Vox," warned the Vox leader.
In response, the spokesperson for the PP, Carlos Díaz-Pache, has defended that the communities governed by his party have promoted the establishment of common correction criteria, which have been "homogenized" among different regions.
However, he insisted that to completely unify these tests, it is essential to govern in Spain and count on the Ministry of Education in order to "be able to address a comprehensive reform of these university entrance exams."
"And this is something we do not have. We can make agreements, but if the government continues to be Pedro Sánchez', then little can be done. Therefore, I believe it is important for Vox to direct its efforts towards contributing and less towards attacking the Popular Party, because that way we can do it together," stated Díaz-Pache.
From Más Madrid, its spokesperson, Manuela Bergerot, has described this discussion as a "false debate promoted by the right" which, in her opinion, distracts attention from the "real problem" of the insufficiency of places to pursue university studies.
For this reason, the party has registered a PNL in which it demands to expand the public offer of degrees with high demand, considering that "it cannot be that a few tenths truncate thousands of vocations every year."
"It cannot be that in Madrid there are more medical places in private universities than in public ones," concluded Bergerot, who understands that many families are forced to choose between their children giving up studying or incurring debt.
The PSOE spokesperson, Mar Espinar, has asked PP and Vox to "review the Constitution" and has stressed that in the current autonomous state there is "state law which is the general regulatory framework," but that each autonomous community is the one that sets the date for its access test.
"I say this because of these pretensions that many times, by trying to deceive people or confuse them with competencies, we forget that we live in an autonomous state in which the autonomies have their competencies," she concluded.