Junta de Andalucia budget approved thanks to Vox

THE 2018 elections for the Junta de Andalucia saw a right-wing coalition gain power after 36 years of Socialist domination in what was the lowest voter turnout since 1990.

There are 109 seats that make up the Junta de Andalucia but following recent trends, there was no overall majority and even a coalition between the Partido Popular (PP-A) and Ciudadanos (C’s) left them eight seats short of a majority.

This election however saw the emergence of the Vox party which captured 12 seats, when previously it held none and thus their former leader, Francisco Serrano Castro became king maker by supporting the coalition on a semi-formal basis.

Thus, the ministerial positions were shared between the PP-A and C’s, with no posts for Vox who initially made a number of extreme demands in order to give their support, although finally, an agreement was reached.

This saw PP-A leader Juanma Moreno (who has been so much in the forefront of decision making with regards to the implementation of the State of Alarm) appointed as President of the autonomous region and Juan Marín leader of the C’s as Vice-President.

Now the latest matter for discussion was approval of the Junta de Andalucia’s 2021 budget which could have been blocked by the Socialist and Green opposition and had to be accepted by Vox in order for it to go through smoothly.

After some disagreements over contents of the budget, which could have resulted in it being thrown out in the Junta chamber, should Vox have stood up and refused to accept it, a number of meetings to thrash the matter out took place.

Finally, the parliamentary spokesman for Vox, Alejandro Hernández, met with both Juanma Moreno and Juan Marín on this morning (Wednesday November 18) at the San Telmo Palace where some last-minute amendments were reportedly agreed and the Vox representative signified acceptance on behalf of his party.

Following the meeting Hernández went to the Parliament building and, the document approving the budget was signed by PP-A, C’s and Vox in a similar manner to the 2019 and 2020 budgets.

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