The Minister of Finance, José Antonio Rovira, has explained that the national priority defended by Vox, which aims to place Spaniards first in access to public aid and housing, "as such cannot be included" in the Generalitat's budgets for 2026. These accounts, approved this Friday after the prior agreement between Vox and the Consell, once again rely on the criterion of roots.
"I understand that's where the chips should fall," he stated, insisting that regional accounts are "numbers and accounts" and that "there is no national priority" in them. The head of Finance made these statements at the Palau de la Generalitat, in the press conference following the presentation of the budgets approved by the plenary session of the Valencian government chaired by the 'popular' Juanfran Pérez Llorca, when asked directly about the inclusion of this national priority in the new accounts.
After the approval of the project, the spokesperson for Vox in Les Corts, José Mª Llanos, defended that the principle of national priority constitutes one of the three pillars of the agreement sealed between his party and the PP, and claimed that it is already incorporated into the regional budgets: "Yes, it will be there because it already is."
In this scenario, Rovira reiterated that "in the accounts, as such, national priority cannot be included" and once again referred to roots, giving as an example the fact that "socialist" town halls like Gandia (Valencia) are "rewarded" in the granting of certain aid.
When asked later if the Consell rules out that national priority will finally be reflected in the budgets, or if it could be introduced in the accompanying law or during the parliamentary process, he limited himself to recalling that the project has already been sent to Les Corts and that "the amendment procedure will now begin." At this point, he insisted: "Here it's numbers and accounts, there's no national priority."
When asked again about Vox's insistence on this principle and whether the Consell would have agreed to tighten the requirements for roots, he assured that he was unaware and did not "believe so," referring to what the first vice-president, Susana Camarero, was indicating to him at that moment from the authorities' bench: "The minister is shaking her head no."
Trade unions, employers' association and Valencian Academy of Language
In another order of things, asked if the budget contemplates cuts for the regional employers' association CEV and for the majority unions CCOO PV and UGT-PV, as the Vox spokesperson had announced last Tuesday when making the agreement with the Consell public, Rovira has responded that in this project "there are no cuts" in this area.
Regarding the allocation destined for the Valencian Academy of the Language (AVL), the Minister of Finance has specified that "it goes up a spark, 4%".