Balearic budget for 2025 "dynamited" by Vox "blackmail"

Costa told a press conference that the government (the Partido Popular) has not yet arrived at a "scenario of extension". But if there cannot be approval, the budget "will be extended and that's that". In other words, the 2024 budget will roll over into next year; in essence it will be same as the 2024 budget. If Vox's conditions don't change, "the obvious consequence is to extend the budget".

The vice-president attacked the Vox parliamentary group for "following the orders" of the national party's headquarters, although he accepted that the margin of negotiation was very limited and that decisions had been brewing for some time. "These have finally materialized. They are pure opportunism and political tactics."

Vox nationally, he said, have opted to be "a destabilising element for PP governments". But the PP in the Balearics would not accept "blackmail". Costa insisted that the government has been willing to negotiate several matters, but "not issues that have nothing to do with the budget" and which are designed to bring about destabilisation.

In this regard he highlighted a Vox demand to guarantee that Castellano is given at least equal weight as Catalan as a teaching language. The government "will not allow a TIL without English".

This was a reference to the 'tratamiento integrado de lenguas' put forward by the 2011-2015 PP government of José Ramón Bauzá. The intention of this was to promote teaching in three languages, English having been the third language, but it was widely perceived as having been anti-Catalan. It proved to be a disastrous policy for the PP and certainly contributed to a heavy election defeat in 2015.

Opposition parties on the left have called on the PP government to end what has been a shaky relationship with Vox since the 2023 election and to negotiate the budget with them instead. The government almost certainly won't do this, but it is in an awkward situation, given that the PP have a minority in parliament.