The new People's Party (PP) government in the Balearic Islands stands out for its crusade against the presence of the Catalan language in a number of areas, with healthcare being one example; but at the same time, its legislative partners are even more radical. The far-right Vox party set down several conditions to enable the PP leader Marga Prohens to have the votes of enough MPs to become Balearic Island president, and among them was the removal of Catalan from its current status in schools. At first, the PP stood up to Vox and shot down the extremists' proposal on ending the immersion policy aimed at protecting the island group's own language. However, the far right retaliated by voting against its spending cap. This Monday, the tussle has ended with the PP giving in and accepting, among other measures, that 20 million euros will be allocated to dismantle the autonomous community's schooling based on vehicular Catalan and replace it with a system of linguistic segregation.
PP-Vox tension
This budget allocation was announced this afternoon in two separate press conferences by the respective spokespeople of the PP and Vox in the Balearic Islands, Sebastià Sagreras and Idoia Ribas. According to the far right, the conservatives have accepted all the amendments proposed by Vox except one and, for this reason, they supported the budget plan set out by Prohens' Balearic Islands executive. The agreement also includes initiatives such as the elimination of all subsidies to employers groups and unions, which until now had been opposed by the PP. The pact also includes the abolition of wealth tax on assets of less than 3 million euros.
A key issue to take into account is that last week the Balearic Parliament experienced a situation practically unheard of in its history: the extreme right abstained in the budget vote for three ministries and several public bodies controlled by the PP. This led to the rejection of those budgets because there was a tie between the PP and the sum of votes from the left, which posed a danger to the passing of the overall Balearic government budget later this year.
The PP accepts Vox's amendments
In this context, Vox accused the PP of designing the budget without their participation and demanded that they be treated as a "real partner". During his speech, Sagreras asserted that his party has accepted the far-right amendments out of "responsibility" considering "the whole is more important than a part". Regarding the wealth tax, he stated that it was an "unjust tax that only exists in Spain and that does not represent even 1% of the government's income". He also announced that new deductions of up to 600 euros will be introduced for owners who put their empty homes on the rental market, as well as for the care of elderly people and for self-employment and second chances.