The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez Almeida, and the deputy mayor, Begoña Villacís, have managed this Wednesday to carry out their third municipal budgets thanks to the votes of three councilors discolos split from Más Madrid with whom they have managed to close an agreement after the slamming door by Vox. The project was debated and voted on – with the incorporation of a few amendments from the opposition – during a plenary session in which the spokesmen of the groups of both sides have crossed a host of reproaches and accusations, and also spiced up by the denunciations of the Rita Mestre’s group on the “disappearance” of the text of one of them: the one that modifies the payment of the IBI tax, agreed with these councilors who now support the mayor. “It is the great trap and fiasco of the IBI, which remains as in 2021”.
The resignation letter from the Recupera Madrid councilor who does not support Almeida’s budgets
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“No subsidy appears in income or expenses in the Budget, and Engracia Hidalgo is empowered [delegada de Hacienda] to process the aid. Thus they avoid a report from the General Intervention that would have had to say that it is illegal to subsidize the payment of taxes in a generalized way, “said sources from the main opposition group.
The mayor, who took the floor by videoconference last to close the debate, had to defend himself from the attacks of the spokesmen of the opposition groups, Rita Maestre (Más Madrid), Mar Espinar (PSOE) but especially from Vox, Javier Ortega Smith, to whom he dedicated numerous and harsh reproaches in response to those that minutes before the spokesman for the extreme right had thrown at him.
The first thing Almeida asked Ortega Smith was “how he is going to explain to the people of Madrid that he is going to vote with the extreme left, with Más Madrid and PSOE, to eliminate the aid of 250,000 euros to Las Hijas de la Caridad de Martínez Campos”, without going any further. Later, he described as “an insult to intelligence and an offense” that the Vox spokesman accused him of presiding over a “communist” government, when, as he reminded him, he himself supported the Villa Accords together with these left-wing groups, among other proposals.
For this reason he accused him of “believing in moral superiority”: “When you vote with the left it is fine and when we reach a reasonable agreement to improve the lives of Madrid people, no. But you can do whatever you want, ¿ no? “, he snapped. “You have tried to block this city,” added the mayor. “We did at all times what we believed was best for Madrid.” “The vast majority [de los madrileños] he wants us to reach agreements. “” Blessed is the plurality. I hope we continue to be so plural, “he settled.
Ortega Smith, in a fiery intervention, had pointed out that the budgets suppose “a betrayal” “both to Vox and to the Madrilenians who trusted the PP”, and reflect “a surrender to the most radical policies of the left” and of the “Communists”. In addition, he has accused the mayor of “twisting the law to create a mixed group that would serve as his support”, giving rise – he added – “to a betrayal that is consummated today, with a Central Madrid that foresees more fines, which slows down the tax reduction and that gives aid to illegal immigration “. “It hurts me to see a mayor who has knelt before the extreme left, who only brings failure and ruin where they have governed,” he snapped at Mayor Ortega Smith.
On the other hand, the spokesperson for the Treasury of the far-right group, Arantxa Cabello, previously intervened to regret that the budget includes 500,000 euros to the “lobby” of the LGTBI collective while “they remove the subsidy to the Godmother Foundation”, with which, to his judgment, the spokeswoman for the Mixed Group, Marta Higueras, is “obsessed.”
But Almeida has also had strong words against the spokesperson for Más Madrid, Rita Maestre, whom he has accused of being “the creator of the Mixed Group with its inability and lack of leadership.” “You cannot speak of More Madrid, speak in the name of what remains,” he snapped, then added that “the majority group has renounced the defense of its principles.”
And to the PSOE spokesperson, Mar Espinar, he has told that she has “a problem” and it is, in her opinion, that her word has little value and it is not known what will happen to her since she may not be the municipal candidate in the next elections: “What he says does not correspond to what the PSOE is going to do in a year and a half,” said the mayor.
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