The votes against by PP and Vox have caused this Thursday, the 5th day, in the plenary session of the Assembly, the downfall of a drive proposal with which the PSOE demanded from the Junta a “sufficient” and “stable” public funding so that the Youth Council of Extremadura can sustain its operating structure, its facilities, activities and programs, as well as the effective exercise of its functions of representation and youth participation.
The initiative, which had only gained support from the PSOE and Unidas por Extremadura, also proposed an adequate budget allocation that would guarantee respect for the organizational, functional and scope autonomy of the Youth Council of Extremadura, preserving its independence as a space for representation of the youth associational movement and preventing its competences from being assumed by other bodies of the autonomous Administration.
Likewise, the socialist proposal called for opening a process of dialogue with the Youth Council of Extremadura and with the youth entities that comprise it in order to analyze the “real” financing needs of the institution and to agree on a framework of budgetary stability that would allow it to carry out its tasks.
PSOE arguments in defense of CJEx
In defense of the initiative, PSOE deputy Aitor Vaquerizo has warned that “no” the operation of the Youth Council of Extremadura is guaranteed with the “cut” in the allocation intended for that body in the regional Budgets for 2027.
“The CJEx cannot guarantee the continuity of work that allows knowing the reality of young people,” the socialist said, who has warned that the “budget” “cut” “jeopardizes” the future of the body, which “represents youth organizations and is the interlocutor between these and the Youth Institute.”
He has thus defended the continuity of the CJEx as an instrument so that youth can continue developing in the community. “It is an issue set out in our legal framework,” Vaquerizo argued, who has asked the Junta to clarify the reasons for applying a “budget” “cut” to the body as “a place where young people can express, debate and create.”
"The CJEx is not here to give reason to political parties or to governments, whatever their color, but to represent youth organizations, to convey their concerns, and to participate in the building of the policies that affect them," he has emphasized.
PP and Vox’s position regarding the proposal
For the PP, the deputy Isabel García López has criticized the "unnecessary noise" that, in her view, the PSOE is trying to generate around youth policies in Extremadura, and she has stressed that the regional Government "guarantees" measures to meet the needs of young people through its policies and its public accounts.
"The CJEx will continue to be a consultative body, for participation and for advising associated young people, but young people have other real concerns, about studying, about working, about starting a business, about buying a home, about forming a family, or about living in the town where they were born," something that, as she has said, the regional Executive will ensure they can achieve.
"The Junta and the PP have a very clear conviction that Extremadura cannot afford to lose the talent, the enthusiasm, and the capacity that our young people have," she has underlined.
From Vox, its spokesperson in the Assembly, Inés Checa, has defended the end of the "chiringuitos"; and she has indicated that almost 60 percent of CJEx spending is devoted to mere internal management, salaries, and goods and services, something that, in her view, "is not necessary to guarantee the free and effective participation of young people" in the decisions that affect them.
"This is the clearest example of a chiringuito, of superfluous spending... and with Vox this has no place," she has stated, because as she has argued "the administration must be neutral."
Along these lines, she has maintained that while Vox defends all young people, the left only "uses them to perpetuate chiringuitos." "Now the doors of this administration are open wide to all young people, whatever they are like, whatever they like... We want all young people, while you (the left) use them as extras but only as long as they repeat your mantras," she has pointed out.
Unidas por Extremadura’s support for the Youth Council
For its part, the deputy of Unidas por Extremadura, David Araújo Gómez, has argued that the CJEx must have "financial sufficiency," in order to be able to operate "independently" and continue producing the studies it has been carrying out.
He has rejected, in this way, the “ideological cutback” applied by the regional Government to the budget items of the CJEx; and he has denied that there are “duplications” between the functions of the organization and those of the Institute of Youth of Extremadura.
“The CJEx is not some kind of shambles and it is not politicized, and even the NNGG are part of the organization,” Araújo has stressed, who has insisted that “it is not right to cut” the budget items for said organization.