He had been Vox’s spokesperson for ten months in Cortés, Castile and Leon, and despite his fiery tone, managed to defuse tensions when Congress began after the party’s arrival. Park, Abascal’s faithful follower … As a result of this discussion, it was decided that he, along with Carlos Pollan, president of the Cortés party, will be a candidate for directorship in the local elections in March. For now, his target is a sheet with the party’s demands that Gruño, or board president Alfonso Fernández Manueco, crumples up and throws to the ground during a plenary session. He intends to use this as a basis to negotiate the 2026 budget.
— Last year, Box did not attend the board meeting for budget negotiations. In principle, that could happen this year. What has changed?
—What happened in 2024 is that we didn’t get a response from Economy Minister Carlos Fernández Carriedo.
–And will it be the same this time?
–As of now, I haven’t received any calls yet. When contact began with the parliamentary groups last year, we emailed them and asked them to respond if they were in a position to accept Grugno’s proposal, but we did not receive a response. This year we will be delivering the same thing, this time in person.
–If the board says no to that, is there nothing more to say?
-clearly. Vox is not willing to budge on its claims and countermeasures, but it is also not willing to budge on Grugno’s claims or, for example, the claims we have presented to Vox to solve the fire problem. However, these proposals are not ones that the PP has not accepted elsewhere. Together with them, we signed budgets in Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Murcia…
–But in Extremadura it’s different.
—If there is still a branch defined in PP, it is because it is a progressive branch. Mr. Guardiola, Mr. Manueco, Mr. Fejoo, and Mr. González Pons, the PP’s Brussels spokesperson who defends the Green Pact, the 2030 Agenda, the attack on our industry, the attack on national sovereignty and food sovereignty…we are going to ask him if he has the will to end all this.
“Honestly, do you have any hope that they’ll be happy?”
–I think all Manueko wants to do is continue to protect the chair. This budget was stillborn as an election propaganda tool by order of the PP’s national president. What hope does Vox have with a budget that even PP doesn’t believe in? none. If Mr Manueco abandons the 2030 Green Pact, strips union subsidies and abandons illegal immigration…
–During your training, are you keeping an eye on the negotiations with PP in Valencia?
–Vox always stands for the same thing everywhere. When the budget agreement with Massón was reached, Manueco said it was not valid because it was an emergency for Castilla y León. With 140,000 hectares burned last year and a clear demonstration of incompetence and inefficiency in management, I believe we are in a state of emergency in our communities. Therefore, Mr. Manueco should set aside his proposed agreement to the PSOE, which is sitting on the bench, and sit down to discuss it with Vox.
–They accuse you of taking sides with the PSOE, according to the People’s Party, and with the PP, according to the Socialist Party.
–I don’t think PP considers the connection between Vox and PSOE to be effective. No one believes that anymore, especially since Vox has made all Socialist Party officials and criminals into judges. How many agreements did Vox offer the Socialist Party? None. How many agreements did Mr. Manueco present to the PSOE?Each year. He will trumpet Vox with his proposals, belittle it, and roll out the red carpet for the Socialist Party, hammering out big regional deals as well as a budget.
-The offer to negotiate made by the Chairman of the Board is open to all parties.
–Yes, the same goes for the Socialist Party, which has civil servants sitting in the chamber. If Mr. Manueco is not interested in negotiating with PSOE or Vox, he will explain it to voters.
–But Vox is voting in Cortez on several initiatives with the Socialists, as well as on the Institutional Advertising Act.
—Most of this legislation is an amendment introduced by Vox and supported by the PSOE and other Congressional groups. What we are not doing is voting against the legislation that we put forward with the PP, as the PP did with the Consensus Act. And we don’t negotiate LGTBI laws or gender violence laws like we do with socialists.
――Why do you have such a bad relationship with PP?
–It’s not a question of whether you’re on bad terms or on good terms. In other areas we reached agreement, but here we broke the policies put forward by Vox, ignored its initiatives, threw the red carpet at the Socialist Party, and reinstated all the progressive policies we had eliminated during our time in government, such as subsidies for trade unions.
–However, the relationship here is worse than that between other local governments and national directorates.
–When I first appeared as Cortes’ spokesman, I told Manueco that we had to try to come to some kind of agreement, but what he did was say that Vox was bankrupt and that we were Remainers and a meat grinder. As time passes, the people of Castilla de Leon are confronting him with reality. This is because the PP of Castilla y León is not a party with more than 50 seats, nor is it Manuelo Herrera. So we can’t expect Vox to continue to be PP’s “pimp pum pum” puppets or for us to be its troupe.
–According to the research, all points indicate that Vox could play a decisive role in forming a government with the PP.
–It’s very far away. Currently, for example, the wind power generation moratorium law and the law regarding difficult-to-reclaim land are pending. What about March? You’ll see the support the public gives us and how determined we are, but the reality is we can’t stop Vox. Spaniards and the people of Castile and León, whether PP or PSOE, cannot stop this movement because they realize that nothing can be done about it.
–Will they return with Grurunyo in the hypothetical PP-Vox negotiations to form a government?
—We are predictable, and these are the principles by which Vox approaches negotiations. Once Vox reaches an agreement, we will keep our word, but if our partners break their word and defend illegal immigration, we will back off because illegal immigration is one of the key cornerstones of Vox’s policy.
Q: You said that Vox can’t be stopped enough to demand a candidate other than Manueco from the PP during negotiations?
–Vox’s intention is to go for the win. Manueko says he plans to win and rule alone. Vox wins with an absolute majority vote.
–I don’t think that will happen.
–Well, it arrived in Italy when no one said it wouldn’t arrive, it will arrive in Argentina, it will arrive in America, and it will definitely arrive in France as well.
– Spain is “different”.
–That doesn’t change. They’re trying to sell it as a way to preserve the two-party system because they’re afraid of losing the two-party system they built. Spain is no different from the rest of the world.
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