The delegate of the Government in Cantabria, Eugenia Gómez de Diego, has warned that Cantabria will lose 191 million euros of regional funding and 12.3 million euros in aid to public transport after the Royal Decree containing this aid collapsed due to the vote against the Popular Party, VOX and Junts per Catalunya.
As explained by the delegate, of those 12.3 million, 7.2 million were destined to guarantee the gratuitousness of the trains of Cerca in the region during 2025. In addition, 2.7 million were going to subsidize regional bus lines and another 2.4 million were going to aid municipal transport.
“The vote against the People’s Party leaves thousands of workers and students who benefited directly from this aid unprotected. No one understands that the PP voted against a decree that included social measures that significantly improved the lives of so many people in Cantabria. It is a betrayal of thousands of Cantabrians and Cantabrians,” said Gómez de Diego.
The delegate stressed that “the decision of the PP is not against the Government of Spain, but against the thousands of citizens who benefit from this aid”. He also stressed that this rejection demonstrates a "lack of commitment" of the Popular Party with the social majority of Cantabria.
In response to the statements of the Minister of Transport of the Government of Cantabria, Roberto Media, who has expressed his willingness to go to the courts to claim this aid, Gómez de Diego has urged the regional president, María José Sáenz de Buruaga, and the councilor to ask Alberto Nuñez Feijóo, the Cantabrian deputies of the PP and the rest of his party colleagues to reconsider and change their position. “If you really want to defend Cantabria, you have the opportunity to do so by supporting this decree. It is not a question of confronting the Government of Spain, but of avoiding enormous damage for thousands of Cantabrians and Cantabrians,” he said.
Social Decree
Gómez de Diego stressed that the decree included "much more than transport subsidies. It is a set of social measures that have also lapsed after rejection." Among them, the revaluation of pensions (2.8% in general, 6% for minimums, 9% for non-contributors and 9.1% for widows’ pensions with family burdens), which will affect 133,000 Cantabrians and Cantabrians; the increase of the Minimum Interprofessional Wage and the Minimum Vital Income, aid to the electrointensive industry through an 80% discount on electric tolls, tax deductions for energy efficiency in homes and electric vehicles, and the raising of the income limit to 22,000 euros to be exempt from filing the IRPF declaration.
"The PP has put its partisan interest before the general interest. It voted against measures that benefit millions of citizens. It voted against the revaluation of pensions. It voted against public transport subsidies. He voted against the aid to the DANA... In other words, it is harming the people who need to be protected the most. The PP’s obsession with trying to bring down the government of Spain is such that they do not care to vote against measures that benefit millions of citizens in our country,” he concluded.