The liquidation of the Periferias festival, a cultural reference in the city of Huesca since 2000, continues to bring a queue. Days after the PP of Huesca agreed to suppress this event specialized in the avant-garde as the price to pay for its support for the 2024 municipal budgets, two town councils in the area, Almudévar -where the PSOE governs in coalition with CHA- and Ayerbe -with socialist majority - have shown their interest in organizing the event in case the popular ones do not back down from their controversial decision.
As explained this Thursday by socialist representatives in the Huesca town council, this would require the Huesca City Council to transfer the Periferias registered trademark, since "this way it would not be lost."
Furthermore, they have once again extended their hand to the mayor, the popular Lorena Orduna, to facilitate the approval of the budgets with her 10 councilors in exchange for three amendments that total 300,000 euros in a budget of more than 60 million: maintaining the 150,000 euros for Peripheries, preserve the 100,000 euros for development cooperation aid (which Vox demands be reduced to only 6,000 euros) and create a new aid line of 50,000 euros for Huesca women victims of gender violence.
This proposal was already launched last Tuesday after knowing the new budget plan, which has the endorsement of the PP (12 of the 25 councilors) and Vox, which provides two positive votes. “We are surprised by the thunderous silence of the mayor towards these three proposals,” they said today.
In pursuit of maintaining the festival in the city where it was born, the socialists have stressed that “for the good of the city” and its inhabitants, “the impositions and ideological approaches” that Vox is trying to impose on the city must be avoided. consistory.
Periferias was born in 2000 with the aim of highlighting the artistic avant-garde, becoming over the years an award-winning and reference festival. The last edition, dedicated to gypsy culture, was inaugurated in October by Mayor Orduna, who then opted for its continuity.
His good reputation contrasts with the hatred that Vox professed towards him, which had long had him in its sights. Therefore, no one was surprised that it became a bargaining chip during budget negotiations, even more so after the warnings sent by the extreme right in the summer.
“Vox Huesca does not have red lines, but it does have green lines. One of them is the Periferias festival, which only serves to shower progressive culturetas with hundreds of thousands of euros. Whoever wants to govern with us must put an end to this waste,” they warned then.
The announcement of its suppression had a great impact on the regional and national cultural world. The minister of the field himself, Ernest Urtasun, regretted the cancellation of an event that was “a reference for the entire country” and pointed out that the duty of administrations is to promote culture, “not censor it.”
For his part, Luis Lles, who was director of the festival for 20 years until his retirement, considered it legitimate for a government to want to change its cultural policy, but questioned the transfer to Vox, “which has no idea what Peripheries and "He tells falsehoods and malicious lies."
“They have always said that it was a refuge for progressive, partisan and red culture, when people like Fernando Sánchez Dragó, who promoted the motion of censure of Vox, Fernando Sabater, Antonio Escohortado or Alaska, who have nothing of That's the other way around," he said.
Regarding the accusations of waste, he responded that the council only contributes 60,000 to 70,000 euros of a budget of 120,000 to 130,000, since it has aid from the Ministry of Culture, the Government of Aragon, the Provincial Council, private sponsorships and the income that They enter through the box office. “It is a very small budget compared to other festivals with less prestige,” he added.
