The PP and Vox government in the Valencia City Council yesterday rejected the motion presented by the Compromís municipal Group in the Welfare and Culture Commission to urge the City Council to declare 2024 as the Estellés Year in the City of València on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of the writer from Burjassot.
The opposition of the town council of the cap i casal, where Estellés lived for many years of his life (in fact he dedicates some of his best-known poems to the city) joins that which was ratified a few days ago by the same two parties in Les Corts Valencianes, after a tense debate. In other institutions such as the Provincial Council of Valencia or Alicante, this motion did go ahead. It so happens that in none of them Vox’s votes are necessary for the PP to govern.
The Compromís councilor Pere Fuser denounced that the rejection occurred without any debate or possibility of an alternative. Fuset believes that “Catalá has distanced itself from the PP of the Diputación de València and has voted with Vox against Año Estellés for pure sectarianism”.
“Despite the offers of Compromís, the Catalan government has refused with vague excuses for Valencia to declare itself institutionally in favor of the Estellés Year as it had recently spoken out for the Berlanga Year, the Sorolla Year or Nino Bravo. “They have not specified anything that they had said they would do to remember the poet and the little that we know was done before the change of government,” said the councilor.
In the motion, the Valencian party asked the municipal government to promote activities aimed at vindicating and promoting the figure of Estellés, as well as creating and providing didactic and educational resources for knowledge of his work in educational centers and municipal libraries. It also proposed collaborating with the Provincial Council of Valencia to carry out events, in addition to urging the Consell de la Generalitat to join this initiative.
After the criticism, municipal sources explained to La Vanguardia that they voted against the declaration of the Estellés year “because the city council does not declare years.” In addition, they point out that “the negotiations have already begun, since October last year, for activities about Estellés this year.”
In this sense, the same sources indicate that they already spoke with the Valencia Provincial Council before Christmas to “offer help and collaboration in some of their events” while the town council “are scheduling activities.” “In addition, we must remember that the previous government team did not leave anything programmed,” they conclude.
