The president of the Junta de Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco (PP), presented this Tuesday the draft budget for 2026 in his community. At this time, the PP does not have the support to move forward in the middle of the electoral pre-campaign.
Mañueco has defended them as “a good project” and “expansive” and has confirmed having presented them in a timely manner, as required by law. Socialist spokesperson Daniel de la Rosa has accused the president of “covering a file” with this budget procedure and has questioned whether they support him: “We are not going to give away our guarantee and we are going to be demanding in the negotiation.” If Mañueco does not obtain support for the accounts, he would face 2026 with a new extension of the 2024 Budgets, approved with Vox. It would be the fifth time that it has issued accounts in the time it has been on the Board, the sixth if the months of 2024 in which Castilla y León had the accounts of the previous year are taken into account.
Mañueco has assured that his project represents “realistic” and expansive accounts in line with the needs of the community, focused on “economic growth” and continuing to consolidate public services. “We allocate more than 80% of the Budget to social policies.” “Citizens are tired of the noise of politics, that noise will always exist, but we have exceeded the expected decibels, politics cannot be a permanent noise but rather solve common problems and open paths of hope,” he maintained.
The president of Castilla y León has demanded increases in the firefighting operation with more resources and aerial means, and “better working and remuneration conditions for those who are at the foot of the canyon”, although the unions have denounced the advances as a “new face lift” and expressed their “total rejection”. Along these lines, he has praised the “recognition of the consideration of forest firefighter”, derived from a national regulation and recently approved by the Board, as well as more hiring and has committed that “in three years” the employees of the forestry sector will move from the private to the public sphere, something that his Minister of the Environment, Juan Carlos Suárez-Quiñones, rejected.
“We do not have the majority necessary for its approval,” he admitted at the end of his speech, promising “humility, an outstretched hand and a willingness to agree” in search of support for his budget plan. “We hope that on this occasion there are no excuses or detours, that they sit down to dialogue and negotiate for the benefit of Castilla y León, they should put themselves before partisan interests,” he urged.
An eventual fiasco of the PP proposal would mean that the 2024 accounts would be extended, a common scene since he became President of the Board in 2019 at the hands of Ciudadanos. So, he maintained those of 2018, as in 2020 due to the pandemic. In 2021 it did approve its own project with Ciudadanos. In 2022, when calling elections and sending away its partners until then, there were no Budgets either. Vox, its new ally, facilitated the signing of those for 2023, extended until 2024. In May 2024, a last Budget was agreed upon, before the extreme right abandoned the pact and led to the budget fiasco, so that in 2025 the Board has managed the numbers for May 2024. Now it has presented a plan for 2026 although there is no sign of it achieving the yes in the Cortes.
Mañueco advances towards the polls, which will open on March 15, without guarantees of obtaining a solitary Government, denied in his first two elections. In 2019 it lost against the PSOE for the first time since 1987, but agreed to a coalition Executive with Ciudadanos; In the 2022 elections, after breaking away from Ciudadanos, he was condemned to Vox and lost votes despite winning the elections. The polls now offer an open scenario, similar to the current one in the Cortes: a victorious PP, slightly increasing its 31 current attorneys but without an absolute majority; a PSOE in numbers similar to the current ones (28) and without room for agreements with small parties; a Vox (11 plus two independents) that improves compared to recent months; and a strong bid between the provincialist formations that continue with a parliamentary presence, without options with the PSOE and hardly with the PP, which would once again remain in the hands of the ultras. Socialist sources assure that according to their polls they could win, although probably without sufficient support.
Mañueco surprised during the last parliamentary plenary session by not showing forcefulness about his electoral expectations. When asked by Pablo Fernández, from Unidas Podemos, if “the most voted list” should govern, the leader avoided speaking out and answered “whoever the people decide”, avoiding the PP’s argument since its national leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, won in 2023 but Sánchez’s alliances prevented him from governing. Mañueco has denied “pressure” when Feijóo announced this Monday that he was confident in “clear victories” in Castilla y León and Andalusia, the next ones in the electoral cycle.
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