The president of the Popular Party of Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, and the spokesperson for Vox in the Cortes of Castilla y León, Carlos Pollán, will announce at 12:00 PM the government agreement between the two formations they have reached in the Castilian-Leonese community. Despite the details of the pact not yet being known, it is taken for granted that the "national priority" will be the flag of the new coalition government. Vox returns to the regional Executive and reopens the debate on the PP's alliances with Santiago Abascal's party.
Thus, the investiture of Alfonso Fernández Mañueco is unblocked. The pact includes the entry of Vox into the regional Government and will foreseeably give a vice-presidency to Carlos Pollán.
The agreement will allow Mañueco to begin a third term at the head of the Junta thanks to the parliamentary majority that PP and Vox have in the regional Cortes. According to information known so far, Vox will regain institutional weight with a vice-presidency and several ministries with political and budgetary capacity.
Carlos Pollán, current leader of Vox in Castilla y León, is emerging as vice-president of the regional Executive, in a re-edition of the coalition formula that both formations already tried after the 2022 elections.
The "national priority", main programmatic concession
One of the most relevant aspects of the agreement is the inclusion of the "national priority" principle, a historical demand of Vox that proposes to give preference to Spanish citizens over immigrants in access to certain public aid, benefits, and resources.
The measure had already appeared in other regional agreements between PP and Vox and now becomes one of the most symbolic political elements of the new Castilian-Leonese Executive.
Second coalition after the 2024 breakup
It will not be the first joint experience between the two formations. Castilla y León was, in fact, the first territory in Spain in which Vox entered a regional government after the 2022 elections, occupying a vice-presidency and three ministries at that time.
That alliance broke in July 2024 when Vox abandoned all its regional governments with the PP due to discrepancies over immigration policy and the distribution of unaccompanied foreign minors among autonomous communities. Since then, Mañueco had governed in minority.
National impact for Feijóo
The agreement also has a political reading that transcends Castilla y León. The new coalition arrives in the midst of a debate about the possibility of an instrumental motion of no confidence against Pedro Sánchez and while Alberto Núñez Feijóo tries to attract parties like Junts or PNV to build an alternative majority in Congress.
The reissue of a PP-Vox government in one of the popular party's historical communities complicates the discourse of those who maintain that an eventual national alternative could be developed outside of Santiago Abascal's party.
If there are no last-minute changes, Mañueco's investiture will be held on June 10 and will put an end to almost three months of negotiations after the regional elections of March 15.