Crowdas was already planned before the celebration due to the large and varied number of groups that had joined the call launched by Burgos Acoge, Atalaya Intercultural, Accem and Caritas to demand that the City Hall led by the popular Cristina Ayala rectify and not make effective in the city’s budget project for 2025, the withdrawal of aid that they contribute to organizations that work with migrants. It is the mobilization which brought together several thousand people this Wednesday behind the slogan “Burgos for coexistence” and a cry against the toll required by government partner, Voxto establish the Accounts and which met with a practically unanimous rejection from the rest of the parties, unions, businessmen, social organizations…
Even Ayala herself and the PP recognized from the start that for them “no”, they would have done it. But, as the mayor surmised during the day, “They will not betray” the concept of “stability” signed in the summer of 2023 with Santiago Abascal’s team, for whom removing this position from the next accounts – 119,000 euros for a total amount which amounts to 250 million – “is essential”.
“A surprising measure because it is incomprehensible”as they denounced in the manifesto signed by the organizing organizations, which Cáritas joined, that the City Hall excludes from the “cut” of aid, but that the humanitarian organization itself announced that it would reject under these conditions. “It doesn’t make any sense, brings nothing positive and in different ways it harms us all”, they criticized, amid “surprise and rejection” of Vox’s request. From the group led by the vice mayor, Fernando Martínez-Acítores, they justify their position by the fact that these organizations “They help promote illegal immigration” and “the appeal effect,” in addition to “disagreeing with a lot of the work they do.”
“Burgos does not suffer, even remotely, from the problems invoked to justify the measure,” defended the organizers, who underlined the “peaceful climate” in which they live together and that the presence of foreign people “does not generate problems “. “, but “contributes powerfully to creating a better, more diverse, rich, plural and cohesive society”. They filed a complaint against the “unconscious and arbitrary” arguments» brandished by Vox, “the result of a political tactic” and demanded that these entities stop being “blamed”.
“When a city is not stable and politically has enormous problems carrying out its projects, the city stops,” the mayor defended to justify her giving in to the demands of her partners. “For now”, there is no way back in the elimination of this aid to NGOs, underlined Ayala, who came to close the door to the approval of the Accounts through an agreement with the PSOE. He assured in statements collected by Ical that they were “much closer to Vox” than the socialists with whom, as has been demonstrated in recent months, “we do not agree on absolutely any of the city projects” .
The PSOE was in fact among those who supported and seconded the mobilization before the City Council, which was also joined by other parties such as Podemos and the UGT and CCOO unions. “Strong support” for the Third Social Sector Platform de Castilla y León – composed of Once, Cermi, European Network to Combat Poverty and Social Exclusion, Volunteering and Platform of Children’s Organizations. Also the Confederation of Professional Associations of Burgos (FAE) demanded that the Town Hall “reconsider” a decision against which they expressed their “disagreement”, because it “represents a blow to the fundamental rights of migrants” and “weakens integration efforts”.
