Huesca is left without Periferias, one of its reference cultural festivals. As a counterpart to its support for municipal budgets, Vox has achieved the elimination of this emblematic event dedicated to the avant-garde, which the far-right formation had already had in its sights before the elections. Its place will be taken by a recreational-festive festival aimed at young audiences, where theater, music or dance workshops will also be taught.
Santiago Abascal's training has never hidden its animosity for this quote. “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 in the summer before the inauguration of the popular Lorena Orduna.
The news was announced this Monday during the presentation of the agreement between the PP (12 councilors out of 25) and Vox (two councilors) for the public accounts of 2024. “We had some lines that we already marked in the electoral campaign, which were non-negotiable ", like the elimination of the Periferias festival, which has happened," said its spokesman, José Luis Rubio, as reported by Heraldo de Aragón.
Mayor Orduna did not directly allude to this issue during her speech to the press. Later, the first deputy mayor, the also popular Ricardo Oliván, did confirm that there is no allocation as such for Periferias, but that the same amount of money is maintained for a cultural festival “that responds to the demand of citizens.” .
“We will do a participatory process so that the people of Huesca, the target audience, tell us what they want to be done with that money in cultural matters,” he added.
Periferias was born in 2000 with the aim of highlighting the artistic avant-garde, and its last edition was dedicated to the gypsy cultural universe. In the past, Vox also criticized it because “almost all the groups (invited) are extreme left.”
However, its founder, Luis Lles, has always defended its plurality, remembering that personalities of diverse ideologies have participated in it. “If they think that Fernando Savater, Fernando Sánchez Dragó, Antonio Escohortado or even Alaska, and all of them have been through Periferias, are extreme leftists, then they don't really know what world they live in,” he said this summer.
For its part, the PP came out in defense of the festival before the investiture, for which they did not need the votes of the extreme right. At that time, its provincial president, Gerardo Oliván, said that Periferias was “a festival that has worked,” although lately it did not have the impact it had been having. “Surely we have to give it a look, but Vox would have to raise questions that are juicier, more substantial for the city,” he said.
The budgets presented amount to 60.9 million euros and are “the highest in the history” of the city, according to Orduna. Of this figure, investments amount to 8.5 million, 3.7% more than last year, of which 5.6 will be allocated to projects financed with European funds. The accounts will be voted on December 22 in a plenary session for approval.
