The new political year begins in Aragon with the question of the governability of the executive led by Jorge Azcón (PP). After the rupture of the government pact with Vox in July, decreed by the far-right formation in the five regional governments of which it was part due to the issue of immigration, the popular will have to deal with an uncomfortable presence that with its seven deputies does not give up having a specific weight. The 28 of the PP in a chamber of 67 allow it to work in a minority to move forward with a legislature in which it will not be able to lose sight of the agreement with Vox and thus relax a relationship that has cooled.
In total, the departure of Vox from the government of Aragon should soften the lines of an executive often linked to the intransigent profile of its former partners in the party led by Alejandro Nolasco in Aragon on issues such as migration. Azcón arrives in September with the clear objective of maintaining the balance between his projects for the autonomous community, with a first horizon in the approval of the 2025 budgets, and the noise generated by Vox during these months in which, in addition, the PSOE has engaged in a renewal process that will lead to the election of the new secretary general to replace Javier Lambán at the beginning of next year.
Nolasco ruled out that his party would support these accounts unless the arrival of migrants was “reversed” and referred in particular to the arrival of a hundred Malian migrants in the town of Mora de Rubielos in Teruel: “If the government of Aragon does not break with this policy, there will be no budgets,” warned the man who is also a member of the national executive of Vox, a formation that “does not lend itself to this policy of corrupt parties”, in reference to the PP and the PSOE. The man who was vice-president of Aragon until two months ago warns that “the Aragonese would not understand an autonomous blockade for an issue that is not even the responsibility of the regional government.”
Vox stresses that in this new direction he will not cling to a government pact that has now disappeared, but rather to the demands of his electoral programme, also aware that it is unlikely that Azcón will turn to his left and reach an agreement with the PSOE. Next year’s budgets are therefore exposed to relative uncertainty, with the approval of the spending ceiling as a first step, and the Aragonese will continue to look in their pockets while waiting for the maintenance of a tax reduction policy promoted by the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration of Roberto Bermudez de Castro.
He advocates maintaining social spending in a complicated context. In 2025, Aragon will suffer a reduction of almost 100 million euros in regional funding compared to last year. It will receive 5.071 million euros for the 5.163 million euros in 2024 due to the decrease in the transfer of funds corresponding to the final settlement of the year 2023.
Another important aspect of these first weeks of political career was put on the table by Azcón during the Grand Prix of Motorcycling that took place in Alcañiz (Teruel). He hopes that the Cortes will show a single voice and form a “common front” with a “great agreement” of all the parliamentary groups on regional financing that “will set an example for all of Spain.”
He referred to the “great consensus” reached within the community on issues such as the Water Pact: “There are people who perhaps think that the debate on regional financing does not concern them, but it concerns each and every one of us. Aragonese because health, education and public services depend on this financing,” said the president of Aragon to confirm that Catalonia will once again be a recurring theme in the plenary sessions.
In this transfer of national dynamics that mix with regional dynamics, the repeal of the Democratic Memory Law annulled by the Constitutional Court is still in force, after the executive of Jorge Azcón presented allegations and requested the lifting of the suspension. And the regional hobbyhorse will remain the lack of doctors, especially in rural areas, and the complexity of a situation, that of primary care, which is very tangled.
Meanwhile, in the Aragonese PSOE, the race has begun to designate the successor of Javier Lambán to the General Secretariat after the convening of the Federal Congress by Pedro Sánchez. At the beginning of the year there will be an autonomous congress presented with an open forecast. From there will emerge the leader of the opposition who, a priori, challenges Azcón in the electoral race of 2027 while the socialists lead the left opposition to the Cortés with 23 deputies, atomized between the PSOE, Chunta Aragonesista (3), Podemos (1 ) and United Left (1). Closer to popular postulates, PAR (1) and Aragón Existen (3) would contribute four deputies for the search for stability of the regional government for a total of 32 that would not total the absolute majority in a chamber with 67 minutes.
The temperature of the relations between PP and Vox can also reach the city halls of the three Aragonese provincial capitals. In Zaragoza, Huesca and Teruel, three popular mayors govern alone (respectively Natalia Chueca, Lorena Orduna and Emma Buj) in a more or less consolidated manner and uncertain months are coming. Not for Buj, with an absolute majority. Chueca, in the absence of a councilor for this, is open to an agreement with the rest of the groups and is therefore forced to turn to the extreme right. Orduna, finally, has been subject to tensions with Vox since the rupture in the spring of their governability pact.
