The Provincial Council Approves a Budget of Nearly 335 Million Amidst Opposition Rejection

The plenary session of the Alicante Provincial Council approved this Thursday the institution's budget for 2025 with the support of the PP deputies, who govern with an absolute majority, and the unanimous rejection of the opposition - PSPV, Compromís, and Vox. Specifically, the budget amounts to 334,617,355 euros, 13.3% more than the previous year - 40 million euros.

Similarly, during this extraordinary session, the chamber rejected the 73 amendments presented by the three opposition groups, which were voted on one by one. Specifically, the socialists registered 48 proposals, Vox 18, and Compromís seven.

The first vice-president and economy deputy, Ana Serna, outlined the general lines of the budget. Serna highlighted the increase compared to last year and that nearly 50% is allocated to municipalities, "with special emphasis on the smallest ones"; the 26% increase in grants for smaller towns and entities, and the 80% increase in the Water Cycle budget, 58% in the Archaeological Museum (MARQ), and 17% in infrastructure.

"It is a budget of a healthy and debt-free administration, which focuses on its municipalities and knows where to invest the money of the people of Alicante. We continue with the PP's tax reduction policy and once again leave the provincial surcharge of the Economic Activities Tax (IAE) at zero," added Serna.

From the opposition, the socialist spokesperson, Vicente Arques, accused the provincial government of keeping the Provincial Council "paralyzed" and "not defending the budgets in the chamber." "They have presented the accounts in haste," he noted. Arques also insisted that "scant amounts" are allocated for rural areas or inclusive sports, while emphasizing that the PP "has forgotten about the Consumption Vouchers, the +Cerca Plan, or the cooperation fund."

In the same vein, the Compromís deputy in the corporation, Ximo Perles, reproached the provincial executive for "not having dialogued" with the opposition for these budgets and also reproached the executive for "the disappearance of the +Deporte Plan."

Likewise, Perles criticized that there are no allocations "for housing, the dana catastrophe, and old promises," considering the accounts "mediocre and unambitious." He also claimed that the PP "has annihilated" the budget for the promotion of Valencian.

For her part, the Vox spokesperson, Gema Alemán, accused the Provincial Council's government of "disregarding the people of Alicante" and believes that the 2025 budgets have been presented "in an inadmissible manner, hastily and without foresight or interest."

"The weight of some allocations that should be higher, such as energy, civil protection, industry, security and public order, employment promotion, or rural development, is insignificant, but they maintain unnecessary, superfluous, and ideological allocations, such as in equality matters, for cooperation programs with third world countries or for the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) and the Valencian Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FVMP)," Alemán concluded.

In response to the opposition, the first vice-president of the Provincial Council and spokesperson for the provincial government argued that initiatives like the +Cerca Plan "are made with treasury surplus" and that "therefore they are not included in the budgets."

Serna reproached the PSPV for presenting their proposals "without saying where they want to draw the budget from to fund them," while considering that the socialists' proposals are "tailor-made."

Regarding Compromís, she pointed out that the amendments registered by Perles "amounted to more than 97 million euros," and accused Vox of presenting them "on December 24th and with the same argument as always," after which she asked Alemán to "show more interest."

The president of the Provincial Council, Toni Pérez, in response to the opposition's criticisms, stated that the "project and competition for the Alicante Congress Centre already had two allocations in 2023 and 2024, totaling 320,000 euros," and that the amount planned for the Elche one is in the 2025 accounts.

Regarding the Alicante Cultural Centre, he maintained that "it is already fully awarded, despite some obstacles, but no further progress has been made because the next step, while the execution project is being carried out, was the large exhibition of all the proposals scheduled for November," which was suspended after the dana "in the sister province of Valencia."

On another note, Pérez requested the Government of Pedro Sánchez "to lift the spending rule to allow local administrations to use their savings for new investments."

Pérez added that "the decree that the central government approved in 2023 prevents the use of surpluses, as originally established by the so-called Montoro Law," referring to the current rule as "the Montero Law, because it does not lift this restriction," in reference to the first vice-president and minister María Jesús Montero.

According to the provincial representative, "it is imposed by decree that all the savings of the municipalities remain as such to offset the State's debt."