Ximo Puig has started negotiations with the Spanish Government to obtain financial aid for associations, groups, chairs or publishing houses from which the Valencian vice president and Minister of Culture, Vicente Barrera, Vox, has removed or drastically reduced funding in the budgets of the Generalitat Valenciana for 2024 by considering it “pan-Catalan entities”.
In the presentation of the culture budgets, Barrera announced that he was removing 60% of the budget from the Bromera foundation, 70% (140,000 euros) from the Full foundation for the promotion of reading, the total amount of aid to the Vicent Andrés chair Estellés, at the Carles Salvador association for the promotion of Valencian culture, at Casa Joan Fuster de Sueca or at Acció Cultural del País Valencian (ACPV). It is also planned to cut aid to the Valencian School entity, although this item depends on Education, in the hands of the PP.
In parallel, Barrera announced his support for theses against the unity of the language with aid of 50,000 euros to Lo Rat Penat and another 50,000 to the Real Academia de Cultura Valenciana, as well as 18,000 euros to the Association of Writers in the Valencian Language (AELLVA) and 10,000 for the Bernat i Baldoví Cultural Center, entities contrary to the official regulations of the Valencian Language Academy. And a grant of 300,000 euros to the Fundación Toro de Lidia, based in Madrid.
Ximo Puig’s objective is to “suture the wounds generated against Valencian culture” for which he negotiates “a broad action by the Government to support our culture and the Valencian people.” The former president points out that, in addition, the Government has the Perte dedicated to promoting co-official languages. “It is not just about the Ministry of Culture, the objective is for several departments to intervene to stop the regional executive’s policy of censorship against Valencian culture.”
The former president trusts that these Government aid will be announced shortly and will serve to “allow these groups punished by Vox to carry out their cultural activity.” “We want to achieve greater complicity from the Government of Spain with the Valencian culture and language,” he concludes.