The favorable vote that the Partit dels Socialistes made yesterday on the Badalona municipal budget for 2024 has fragmented the opposition in the City Council. An example is the criticism that the two councilors of Badalona En Comú Podem (BECP) have launched against the PSC, considering that a left-wing party cannot support a government that withdraws social aid from vulnerable evicted families.
In the plenary session, En Comú Podem, ERC and Guanyem voted against the budget, but the mayor, Xavier Garcia Albiol, guarantees a large majority with the favorable vote of the four PSC councilors after having negotiated a series of counterparts in the budgets . A vote that unnerved the rest of the opposition, who accused the PSC of being the PP’s crutch, to which Albiol replied that “we are a party with two legs that does not need crutches, but we listen and accept good proposals.” . ERC regretted that none of its proposals had been accepted.
Fernando Carrera, spokesperson and president of the socialist municipal group, replied to the two councilors “that before entering into criticism the socialist proposals should be read.” The leader of the PSC assures that thanks to his agreements, among others, an item has been approved so that the Servei d’ Information i Atenció a les Dones (SIAD) can have psychologists and lawyers. In terms of housing, the PP has accepted, at the request of the PSC, to create a specific office “to promote courageous housing policies,” Carrera stated. On the other hand, says the opposition leader, “the councilors of the Commons prefer to settle for a permanent NO.”
The two councilors of the Comuns consider that the PSC vote in favor of the budgets “is incoherent with the ideas that a supposedly progressive party should defend” and understand that they cannot support a city model like “the one defended by Albiol” that , in the opinion of BCP “does not believe in social policies or in the defense of the right to housing.” In parallel, Llauradó assures that the PP budgets are “unreal” since they will not be able to materialize “due to the lack of human resources in the City Council.”