The Mixed Group of Congress has ratified that it will impose on its new member, the former Vox deputy Javier Ortega Smith, the same internal regime that it previously applied to the former socialist minister José Luis Ábalos when he was expelled from the PSOE and was forced to integrate into this parliamentary conglomerate.
From this moment on, Ortega Smith will have to share the group with the four deputies of Podemos and with the representatives of the Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG), Canary Coalition (CC), Union of the Navarre People, and Compromís, all of them with a single seat.
According to sources from the Mixed Group explained to Europa Press, its current members have chosen to follow the precedents of Ábalos, expelled from the Socialist Group, and Pablo Cambronero, who in the last legislature joined the Mixed Group after leaving the Ciudadanos group, the party with which he ran in the elections.
A different precedent from Àgueda Micó
The case of Àgueda Micó was different, as she arrived at the Mixed Group after leaving the Sumar group by her own decision a year ago, and was treated as a full member, redistributing her spokesperson roles in committee and opening her quota to register initiatives, in addition to including her in the distribution of speaking times in the Plenary, also in the debates with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez.
In contrast, none of that was enabled in February 2024 when Ábalos joined, and it will not be done now with Ortega Smith. The current members of the heterogeneous Mixed Group equate him to the figure of a non-attached deputy, a category that exists in local corporations and autonomous parliaments, but that is not contemplated in the Congress regulations.
The Mixed Group has indeed complied with the regulatory requirement of assigning him a spokesperson role: that of the Petitions Committee, in the same way that happened with Ábalos. This is an organ that meets behind closed doors, with little parliamentary workload and in which hardly any votes are held.
The one who was one of the founders of Vox, relocated in the hemicycle in the same seat that Ábalos occupied and also settled in his old office, will not be able to intervene in the Plenary nor have a personal quota for the presentation of initiatives.
Under these conditions, Ortega Smith will only be able to register written questions, as it is an inalienable individual right of each deputy that does not require the signature of the group spokesperson.
Monthly subsidy and resources for an assistant
The Mixed Group, like the rest of the parliamentary groups, receives a monthly subsidy of 30,346.72 euros, which is distributed among its members, in addition to a variable amount depending on the number of deputies, set at 1,746.16 euros per month per seat.
Now, those almost 1,750 euros per deputy will be assigned to the new member of the Mixed Group, but, since it is a targeted subsidy, they can only be used to cover expenses related to their parliamentary work, such as hiring an assistant.
With his move to the Mixed Group, Ortega Smith will continue to receive practically the same amount he had been receiving until now, after the group of Santiago Abascal withdrew all the spokesperson positions he had held in this legislature.
Specifically, he will continue to receive the basic constitutional allocation of 3,366.99 euros, to which is added the compensation of 1,032.38 euros that is paid to those elected from Madrid to cover their parliamentary activity. In addition, with the spokesperson position of the Petitions Committee that he will assume, his remuneration will increase by an additional 1,252.04 euros per month for representation expenses.