An unprecedented day took place this Tuesday in the Balearic Parliament due to the agreement between the Government of Marga Prohens (PP) and the left-wing parties (PSOE, Més per Mallorca and Podemos), which left Vox, its initial partner, cornered to validate the correction of the 34 amendments of Vox to the Law of Administrative Simplification voted by mistake previously and to prohibit new constructions in flood zones.
The decrees approved are of great relevance. The first corrects 34 amendments by Vox to the Law of Administrative Simplification which, due to an error by the PP, would have eliminated Catalan as a vehicular language in education and removed its status as a requirement for access to public administration. The second decree prohibits new constructions in flood zones and the legalization of existing buildings in risk areas in the Balearic Islands. In exchange for the support of the left, the PP pledged to paralyze Vox’s proposal to repeal the Law of Democratic Memory, passed in 2018.
A pact that marginalizes Vox
After winning the elections in 2023 without obtaining an absolute majority, Prohens decided to govern alone, with the external support of Vox, a party with which she reached a programmatic agreement of 110 measures and to which she ceded the presidency of the Parliament. However, the relationship between the two parties has been deteriorating month after month, with the language policy as the main stumbling block, to the point that the PP will not be able to approve its autonomic budgets, since Vox conditioned its support to a change of course regarding Catalan in schools. The internal crisis of the Vox parliamentary group itself has also had an influence, which in a year and a half of legislature has had to change its spokesperson and has lost two of the eight deputies it obtained at the polls due to abandonment.
The challenge of governing alone
The main challenge for the Govern will be to approve the autonomic budgets next February, when parliamentary activity resumes. Without the support of Vox, the only way for the PP will be to negotiate with the left again to guarantee stability in the remaining two years of the legislature. The Socialist spokesman, Iago Negueruela, stressed “the importance of parliamentary arithmetic” and offered dialogue to the PP, while criticizing the “blackmail” of Vox. From Més per Mallorca, Lluís Apesteguia valued the pact as a step towards “coexistence” and asked to “remove them” from Balearic politics to stop their “hate strategy”. The plenary session was marked by moments of tension, especially when the spokeswoman of Vox accused the PP and PSOE of being “the cancer of Spain”. Cristina Gómez, a PP deputy recently reinstated after cancer treatment, reproached these words, recalling the more than 300,000 cancer diagnoses in Spain this year alone. In a scenario of great polarization, Prohens will have to demonstrate her ability to weave specific agreements that will allow her to maintain control of the Govern and circumvent the political blockade of Vox.
