Almeida and Villacís blame Ortega Smith for their difficulty in approving the accounts

If the Madrid City Council governed by PP and Cs last year approved its 2022 budgets in extremis and with a pirouette that made it rely on the Mixed Group formed by outgoing councilors from Más Madrid, for this year the outlook is even darker for the coalition.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
17 November 2022 Thursday 13:31
24 Reads
Almeida and Villacís blame Ortega Smith for their difficulty in approving the accounts

If the Madrid City Council governed by PP and Cs last year approved its 2022 budgets in extremis and with a pirouette that made it rely on the Mixed Group formed by outgoing councilors from Más Madrid, for this year the outlook is even darker for the coalition.

Both the mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, and the deputy mayor, Begoña Villacís, are beginning to resign themselves to the possibility of having to extend the current accounts for 2023 and have blamed the situation on the municipal spokesperson for Vox.

While the councilor has directly pointed to Javier Ortega Smith as the person responsible for the "blackmail" to which the municipal government has been subjected, the orange leader has chosen to call him "intransigent" and practice "political bullying" and daily insults

For Almeida, the spokesperson for the Vox Municipal Group "is neither here nor expected" and has not hesitated to criticize that the national deputy from the ultra-nationalist formation "does occasionally set foot in Madrid and with unaffordable approaches."

The Madrid councilor has shown himself intransigent when pointing out that the municipal government "cannot and will not give in to this blackmail" and has made ugly his investiture partner, "if he does not want to sit down, if he does not know how to justify that He has voted abstention, yes and no on three budgets and now he doesn't know how to get out of the mess he's in, he uses us as an excuse”.

In this sense, Almeida asked if anyone understands that in the Community of Madrid Rocío Monasterio does not have red lines to sit down to negotiate and Ortega Smith in the City Council does.

For this reason, he has insisted, "I would love to have an interlocutor like Monasterio, being from the same party", because, "although I do not know if he would reach an agreement, but at least he does not have red lines", pointed out the Madrid councilor.

For the deputy mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís, "political bullying is unacceptable. We have a problem with Javier Ortega Smith and with Vox because what they do not want for their affiliates (after removing him from the general secretariat of formation), because they take away of secretary for these forms, they are giving it to the people of Madrid", has condemned the deputy mayor in the press conference after the Governing Board, which has moved to Barajas.

After listening to Ortega Smith's criticism of the municipal government regarding the budget, the vice mayor has affirmed that the coalition Executive is "generous" presenting a project of accounts that they know would not be the end since they are open to negotiations.

"The fund is negotiable: we want to lower taxes because we can manage it well, we want to reach the legal minimum of the IBI. Forms are important in politics and that is why political bullying is unacceptable," he charged against the municipal leader of Vox.

"In this coalition government we owe no obedience to anyone but the people of Madrid. That is why I ask all the political groups to reflect and not only Ortega Smith but also Vox, who know that they have sent an intransigent person to the City Council, who insults this government on a daily basis, with political bullying," he reproached. Villacís has ended up making a call "for reason, consensus and for people to behave with a certain normality".