Opposition groups in Cantabria on Monday canceled the 2026 budget of the Popular Party government headed by María José Saenz de Burruaga. They did so in a tense plenary session from the start that was marked by debate over the format of debate and vote on the three amendments in their entirety put forward by the PRC, the SWP and VOX. They were voted on separately, against the will of these majority parties, and without the precautionary suspension they requested.
For this reason, the far-right party left the hall, and after that, its spokeswoman, Leticia Díaz, returned to defend her amendment in its entirety in a speech in which she accused the Speaker of Parliament, María José González Revuelta (PP), of committing a “criminal crime” and “violating the constitutional rights of parliamentarians” for not taking up the precautionary measure of the appeal submitted by her party, joined by the Regionalists and Socialists, against the decision that established a separate vote on each of the amendments.
The three opposition parties wanted to hold a joint vote, because they demanded the same thing: that the accounts be returned to the Executive Committee of the People’s Party. However popular They played one last trick on Friday to save their accounts Which forces each group to support amendments by its political rivals — with notable ideological differences between them — so they can move forward, given the “power to command any debate and vote” that the House of Representatives’ bylaws give to its speaker, according to the report on the issue prepared by lawyers and released on Sunday.
And so it was, but not with the result expected by a minority of the People’s Party, which this time did not have the support of its usual regional partner for implementing budgets. The Buruaga government will have to redo the accounts – or extend existing accounts – so Cantabria will not have new budgets at the beginning of the year, an unusual scenario in this community.
The amendment to the entire Socialist Workers’ Party – the first party to be registered, and therefore the first to be voted on – was approved by Parliament by a majority of 18 in favour, 16 in favour, with one abstention (Socialist MP Eva Salmon was absent during the vote). Once the first amendment was fully passed, the other two amendments were not voted on, as budgets had already been returned to the government.
The amendment, which was fully implemented, was only rejected by 15 PP deputies and the renegade Vox parliamentarian, Cristóbal Palacio. The discussion lasted about three hours. While Economy Minister Luis Ángel Agueros (Popular Party) based his intervention mainly on the consequences that the refusal of regional accounts would have on mayors – boasting of holding “friendly and mutually satisfactory meetings with more than 80 presidents” – the opposition blamed him for “blackmail and buying wills.”
The regionals have defended their rejection of these bills, unlike the last two years when they served as a crutch for the People’s Party to push them forward, stressing that on this occasion they do not have “the proposals and the regional seal”, while once again criticizing the “lack of management and implementation” of the 2024 and 2025 proposals. Their regional candidate, Paula, said: “Maybe we are naive or deceived.” Fernandez: “We thought it would be possible for the president and her advisors to manage good budgets as a minority.”
The Socialist Workers’ Party criticized the “lack of ambition” in the budgets, which contain “beautiful numbers that have not yet been achieved.” Party spokesman Mario Iglesias, who stressed the PP’s privatization model and the “red credibility” of the Burruaga government, stressed that “they are not responding to the real problems of health, education and housing.”
Finally, Vox has raised its tone, accusing the populist parties of “fraud” and doing “a very dirty job by trying to deceive” with their warnings about what we stand to lose if these budgets do not go ahead.