The first session of the first Political Orientation Debate of this legislature began after eleven in the morning with the sole intervention of the President of the Principality, Adrián Barbón, who reviewed for almost an hour and a half what had been done, what was pending and what was planned, splashing his speech with occasional announcements. This is the usual list in this type of parliamentary session, in this case the first since the new coalition government of the PSOE and the IU-Convocatoria por Asturias took office.
Barbón chose the “star” project of his government to focus on during the first minutes of his speech. The Escuelines began nineteen days ago, as the president recalled, and they did so with 53 boys and girls forming the first nursery schools of the regional network, baptized, not insignificantly, with names in Asturian and Eonaviego, the latter also used by the president when asking, once again, for the support of the Chamber for the official status of the Asturian languages.
Education and housing were the two pillars of the welfare state chosen by the Asturian government for the president to make the most important announcements, “rare” as some opposition groups would later acknowledge.
The Principality will become a guarantor to facilitate the rental of apartments
In the interest of the Government of the Principality, according to its president, to facilitate access to higher education without the income level being somewhat “insurmountable”, Adrián Barbón announced that from next year, registration for the first university course will be completely free up to an unspecified income threshold.
Free, which can be extended to the entire degree, he noted, for those who meet “certain academic requirements.” For example, in the president’s words, anyone studying a science degree and passing 65% of the credits, “will not have to pay a single euro for registration for the next course.”
With the education area settled, the time has come to deal with housing, and after recalling some figures, such as the 600 new social housing units that the government has promoted the construction of, as Barbón explains, throughout Asturias, as well as the rehabilitation of other 180 properties and 1,688 apartments of the Housing of the Principality of Asturias (VIPASA), Adrián Barbón assures that the Asturian Government will take measures to facilitate rentals, acting as a guarantor.
A figure that will allow the Principality to capture empty apartments and manage them, with guarantees for their owners. In this way, the Administration will act as guarantor to ensure both the collection of rent and the good condition of the property.
In the industrial field, the President of the Principality has once again made public his government’s commitment to the steel industry, but acknowledging that Arcelor Mittal is “the elephant in the room”, since he still does not explain what is happening with the decarbonization project. which remains paralyzed. Not a word after the statements of the Minister of Industry, Jordi Hereu, who, during a visit to Asturias eleven days ago, assured that the steel industry was doing well “with or without Arcelor”.
The President also took the opportunity to review some issues, already known, that are currently on the table of the Asturian Parliament and that must be addressed during this last quarter of 2024 or throughout the first half of 2025. This is the case of the implementation of the Economic Office of the Presidency, the regulation of housing for tourist use, the bill for Mental Health or the implementation of the Asturian Water Agency, which will be installed in the Águila Negra building in Colloto (Siero), which the Principality plans to purchase next year.
Knowing that the budget negotiation is fast approaching, and that the future of these measures depends on the Government’s ability to implement the 2025 budget, the President of the Principality began the end of his speech with express requests for support, calling for consensus and emphasizing “humility” as a good way to participate in political action.
Even though the session will continue tomorrow with the intervention of the opposition parliamentary groups and the response of the president, the parliamentary spokespeople did not want to lose this Tuesday the opportunity to comment, in the corridors, their first impressions on the intervention of the boss with the Executive.
A “predictable, courageous and uncritical” speech
While the spokesperson for the Socialist Parliamentary Group, Dolores Carcedo, saw in the speech of the Asturian president the intervention of a person “linked to the Asturian reality” with a broad desire for dialogue and the search for agreements and broad consensus, far from reality. the popular Álvaro Queipo for whom the Barbón project is “exhausted” and lives off the inertia of what others have done. Queipo dishonored the fact that the president did not address the issues in which “he left the Asturians abandoned” and called on the honorable person to inform himself about his alternative project, which he will make public in tomorrow’s session, Wednesday.
Vox missed that the president had mentioned “the main concern of the Spanish people, immigration” and called the Eonaviego that Barbón used in part of his speech “invented language” to end with a call for the president’s resignation.
Decaffeinated, complacent and with few announcements, the president of the Forum, Adrián Pumares, saw the intervention of the president, a group from which one could expect a favorable vote in the budget negotiation. Pumares missed that the head of the Asturian Executive spoke more about regional financing, since all the measures mentioned are impossible if one is not against a single financing for Catalonia, he assured.
The government partner was satisfied, and for Xabel Vegas, Barbón’s speech responds to the progressive agreement of the government, so much so that some of the measures announced, such as housing, “bear the seal of the Call for Asturias”, from where they applaud that finally, housing is at the center of political action.
Finally, the representative of the Joint Group, Covadonga Tomé, acknowledged that she had high expectations for this intervention given its beginnings. “Neither particularly advanced nor particularly proactive,” he said, announcing that “significant social mobilization” will be necessary if progress is to be made on such important issues, such as housing.
Tomé missed references to primary care, “not a single proposal” on mental health, a worrying attitude that continues to boast about tourism data while Asturias is beginning to have a problem with tourism and has no model to contain it, and no news from Arcelor after the minister’s “worrying” comments, he concluded.
