The mayor of Burgos, Cristina Ayala (PP), canceled the controversial withdrawal of aid to NGOs that work with immigrants in the 2025 budgets, imposed by Vox to carry out the municipal accounts of the government she chairs and which generated a wave from the neighborhood and social rejection.
Ayala announced that the PP would recover this aid in the 2025 budget project, which leaves it in the hands of its government partner to carry out its threat and not support the accounts and leave the municipal government if these cuts, which were made, were not carried out, aroused strong criticism from the opposition, unions and social and neighborhood organizations. The mayor acknowledged that the massive concentration of rejection of the measure “gave us pause.”
“We are not going to break this stability,” said the mayor of Burgos to assume what Vox can do at the moment, reject the budgets and leave the municipal government. And he recalled that to advance the municipal accounts there are alternatives such as the motion of confidence if Vox refuses to support the accounts.
This Wednesday, a massive demonstration filled the Plaza Mayor of the Castilian city to protest against the measure imposed by Vox and initially accepted by the PP to remove aid to NGOs that work with migrants, which led others like Cáritas to reject any help from the Burgos council. The removal of this item from the PP and Vox budgets for 2025 of 119,000 euros leaves the situation of around 7,000 people pending and represents a “social rupture”, explained the president of Accem de Burgos, Gloria Aguilar.
The crisis within the municipality of Burgos was triggered when it was learned that Vox had imposed on the PP the disappearance in the 2025 budgets of the position intended for entities serving the migrant population of the city, which until now was managed by the ACCEM, Burgos Hosts and Intercultural Watchtower organizations. Immediately afterwards, other organizations such as Caritas announced that they would forgo aid from the council if the council did not back down. This Wednesday morning, Mayor Cristina Ayala (PP) indicated that she did not want to “assume” the cost of the absence of municipal accounts for 2025, therefore “for the moment, there is no option to modify the budget.
The City Hall’s decision motivated Unicef, the United Nations children’s agency, to warn Burgos City Hall that the title of “Child Friendly City” was in danger, as recognized this Thursday by the municipal spokesperson, Andrea Ballesteros.
Unicef contacted Burgos City Hall to warn of the implications that the removal of financial support agreements from three organizations dedicated to helping immigrants could have for children, while Burgos has been declared a “City child-friendly”, as the municipality recognizes today. the spokesperson for the municipal government, Andrea Ballesteros.
Cristina Ayala reached the position of mayor of Burgos after the municipal elections of May 2023, when thanks to a Vox pact she obtained the support to obtain the position, although during the electoral campaign she had insisted to the PSOE that the list with the most votes be allowed to govern. The PSOE won with 12 councilors but the sum of 11 from the PP and 4 from Vox gave the municipal government to Ayala.
In June this year, Vox tried to get the Burgos municipal police to carry out “periodic inspections, home visits and identity checks” with the aim of detecting “possible cases of illegal registration” , according to the deputy mayor, Fernando Martínez-Acitores. . by spreading the hoax of possible “electoral fraud” in these registrations in addition to emphasizing that “all” the causes are linked “to cases of illegal immigration”. On this occasion, Mayor Cristina Ayala disowned her government partner and recalled that she alone gives orders to the police. Vox’s idea was considered by the Migration Ministry as “interference” in matters that fall under the jurisdiction of the national police and “for xenophobic purposes”.
The departure of Vox from the government of the city of Burgos comes in a context of clash between the PP and Vox in Castile and León after the departure of the far right from the government of Mañueco a few months ago. The two parties also govern in the city of Valladolid, among other municipalities in the community, where new elections must take place no later than February 2026.
