Vox has withdrawn at the last second and by surprise the controversial proposal that had been included in the agenda of the plenary session of the Alicante City Council, an institutional declaration for the plenary session to urge the Corts Valencianes to modify Law 4/1983, of November of Use and Teaching of Valencian to include Alicante in the list of municipalities with Castilian linguistic predominance.
The proposal had generated no little controversy and expectation to know the response of the majority group, the PP, which governs alone with its 14 councilors, who are not enough to win the votes in a plenary session of 29 councilors, so the support of Vox, which doubled its representation in the last municipal elections from 2 to 4, is necessary to govern the council without excessive setbacks.
Given that the regulations prevent the withdrawal of a matter when its debate has already begun, the Vox spokesperson, Mario Ortolá, has taken advantage of his previous proposal, which referred to a matter concerning a market, to announce the withdrawal of the motion on the linguistic predominance, on condition that the PP committed to supporting the issue later.
Ortolá has said verbatim: “they told us a couple of hours ago that (…) they are working on a reform to eliminate the linguistic imposition in the city of Alicante from the Generalitat government, which is what we are pursuing… .”, so, for the sake of “good faith”, but demanding that the PP commit to supporting that idea, he has withdrawn the motion.
The socialist spokesperson, Ana Barceló, has expressed her surprise out loud at a negotiation between the two parties, partners in the Consell, that seemed to be happening before the plenary session. Although from the words of the far-right spokesperson it can be deduced that the withdrawal had to be agreed upon in advance. In fact, the popular spokesperson, Mari Carmen from Spain, has been quick to respond affirmatively to Vox’s request: “yes, we agree and we will support it.” So the matter, and the debate in which it was planned that other groups would intervene in addition to the municipal groups, has not taken place.
Groups that had protested against this initiative and have started collecting signatures in defense of the Valencian, -such as Escola valenciana, which claims to have collected 16,000 signatures-, have demonstrated both in the plenary hall, with applause, and on social networks, their satisfaction with a withdrawal that they attribute in part to the social pressure exerted, although others consider it worrying that Vox claims to have the promise that the Consell will act in the line that they advocate for Alicante, that is, limiting the teaching of Valencian in the classrooms.
