Ceuta aid row: parties attack €309m crisis decree

A €309 million emergency package for Ceuta is under fire in Spain’s Congress after the mass arrival of migrants. MPs debated the decree in Madrid on Wednesday, including €36.6 million in direct aid for affected businesses and self-employed workers. The vote will decide whether the measures are confirmed or scrapped.

Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo urged MPs to back the package. He said Ceuta should not face added economic uncertainty on top of the uncertainty caused by the crisis.

Three parties hold back support

The People’s Party, Vox and Junts all attacked both the decree and the government’s handling of the crisis. None said in the chamber whether it would vote to uphold or overturn it.

People’s Party MP José Vicente Marí Bosó said the government was using the decree to spread propaganda rather than help people in Ceuta. What mattered, he said, was a return to normality and a guarantee that a similar episode would not happen again.

Vox had already said it would oppose the measures. Its MP José María Figaredo called the support too small, calculating that companies and self-employed workers would receive about €2,000 each on average.

Junts calls package the cost of failure

Junts MP Josep Maria Cruset described the aid decree as the “bill” for political failure. Governing, he said, meant preventing a crisis and coordinating a response, not arriving afterwards with the official gazette and public funds.

Podemos, EH Bildu and the Basque Nationalist Party said they would vote to confirm the decree.

Topics: Migration · Politics · Economy · Palma

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com