The bovine crisis in Castilla y León hits Vox in full negotiations to enter more governments
The crisis derived from the measures adopted by the Junta de Castilla y León to make the control requirements of bovine tuberculosis more flexible now reaches national policy. Yesterday, after the European Commission pointed out that the plan designed by the regional government of Alfonso Fernández Mañueco collides head-on with the European regulations in this regard, several ministers of the central Executive took the opportunity to attack the only regional alliance that currently exists between the Party Popular and Vox at a time when both parties are beginning the negotiation phase with their sights set on possible support in other territories.
The relaxation of the requirements, activated in mid-May, was paralyzed by the Executive, which filed a contentious-administrative appeal days ago in the Superior Court of Justice of Castilla y León, understanding that the measure went against national regulations, although the Board always defended the legality of the plan. This led to the revolts of farmers seen this week in Salamanca. Yesterday, finally, the Ministry of Agriculture allowed through the BOE to resume the movement of bovine cattle, which rendered the stoppage ineffective, and the Board settled all controversy by ensuring that it will comply with community and national law.
First it was the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, and, yesterday, the Minister of Health, José Miñones, who accused Castilla y León of damaging the image of the livestock sector and putting public health at risk with its strategy. Meanwhile, the PP and Vox defend the approach of their measures. The vice president of the Board, Juan García-Gallardo, asserted from Brussels that the regional government will not back down: «We are going to continue defending this resolution where necessary: in Madrid, in Brussels and also in the courts. We have not backed down and we are not going to back down in our intention to make the regulations more flexible within the current margins that the law allows us.
Precisely the portfolio of Agriculture and Livestock falls in Castilla y León in Vox. For the moment, Mañueco – whom the opposition accuses of hiding and not showing his face during this crisis – rules out both the dismissal of the counselor, Gerardo Dueñas, and the breaking of the pact with Vox. The president of the Board settled all controversy yesterday by stating that he will comply with community and Spanish regulations: “We are going to work in all areas to improve the situation of the field, hand in hand with the sector, within community and national legislation.”
The controversy comes at a delicate moment for both parties, but especially for Vox, which made the countryside one of its electoral strongholds and which will foreseeably claim in other autonomies to also have the powers of Agriculture and Livestock. For the moment, while those of Santiago Abascal urge the PP to reach agreements before 23-J, the popular ones delay any type of contact and will force the deadlines to the maximum so that a hypothetical alliance in the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, Extremadura or Aragon does not take its toll on them in the general elections.
That the conflict now reaches national politics also harms the right. Vox boasts of Castilla y León as an example that a coalition between conservatives can come to fruition. The PP, for its part, maintains a low profile on the territory, something that Vox dislikes, which continues with an “outstretched hand” and “patience” waiting for the PP to show signs of wanting to reach new autonomous pacts in the image and likeness of the one achieved between Mañueco and García-Gallardo.
The controversy surrounding the protocol – “Perhaps public health has been taken to an extreme,” Dueñas himself considered – is, in any case, the latest episode of the various crises that the regional Executive has had to face in recent times.. Still in the campaign, before its formation, Vox took advantage of Minister Alberto Garzón's recommendation to eat less meat at the beginning of 2022 to directly confront him. And in January of this year, the fetal heartbeat proposal launched by Vox caused cracks in the regional government and its discussion led to a clash with the Council of Ministers.
AGREEMENT NEGOTIATIONS
THE PSOE WILL NOT ABSTAIN IN ARAGON. The acting president of the Government of Aragon, Javier Lambán (on the right), dismissed the request for abstention that the PPa candidate to succeed him, Javier Azcón, transferred to him, and urged him to “present himself in Parliament with the 34 votes that guarantee him the investiture”, alluding to a pact with Vox.
NO AGREEMENT IN NAVARRE. UPN and the PSOE staged their deep differences yesterday in order to reach an agreement to form a government in the foral community in a meeting that in the party of the current president and candidate for re-election, the socialist María Chivite (second from the right), they described as “harsh”.
OVERTURN IN THE CANARY ISLANDS. Casimiro Curbelo (on the left), from the Gomera Socialist Group, yesterday signed his support for the pact reached between Fernando Clavijo (in the center), of the Canary Islands Coalition (CC), and Manuel Domínguez (on the right), of the PP, to govern in the islands to replace the socialist Ángel Víctor Torres.