The Government vetoes in Congress a Ciudadanos law for the direct election of the Provincial Councils

MADRID, 29 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Government has vetoed the parliamentary processing of the bill that Ciudadanos registered in Congress for the direct election of provincial councils, a decision that is based on the fact that its application would entail a cost of more than 14.4 million euros and therefore would imply an increase in budget appropriations.

Ciudadanos, which originally flagged the elimination of the Provincial Councils as it considered them unnecessary and a source of corruption, registered an electoral reform at the end of last year to democratize these institutions so that their members are directly elected by the citizens. instead of being councilors proposed by the parties.

And now the Executive, which constitutionally has the power to veto legislative initiatives that alter the Budgets, either due to a decrease in income or an increase in public spending, has blocked their parliamentary process, preventing them from even being debated in Congress.

In their letter, to which Europa Press has had access, the Government of PSOE and Unidas Podemos alleges that approving this electoral reform would force an increase of 14.4 million euros in budget credits to cover electoral costs and subsidies to parties.

On the one hand, it points out that putting a separate ballot box for provincial councils, which would be added to the infrastructure of municipal elections, "in practice it would be comparable to holding another concurrent electoral process", which would affect both counting, with "an extra cost of 2.4 million euros", as well as the budget for ballots and envelopes, with an additional cost of another two million. In total, taking into account the forecast of the 'mailing', that separate election would cost 4.4 million.

But, in addition, the Government refers to the subsidies per seat and vote that Ciudadanos proposes in its bill (1,625.44 euros for each provincial deputy elected and 65 cents for each vote harvested), and concludes that another ten would have to be reserved million euros: 1.67 million to pay for the 1,038 deputies to be elected and another 8.32 million to subsidize the votes, with calculations according to previous elections.

"Because of what was detailed above, the approval of the Reference Bill is likely to produce an increase in credits in the General State Budget, for which reason the Government does not give its approval for its processing," the Executive settles.