PP and Vox will govern together in Extremadura

MadridHabemus pact for a new government in Extremadura. After weeks of negotiation, PP and Vox have reached an agreement to invest María Guardiola as president of the Extremaduran Junta, as announced by Guardiola herself this Thursday afternoon, in a press conference from Mérida. "It is a much-awaited agreement and we are satisfied," said Guardiola. The PP candidate boasted of having been able to leave "ideological differences" behind. "We have achieved a broad majority that will sustain a very good government for Extremadura," she reiterated.

The pact, however, also means the entry of the far-right into the regional government. Santiago Abascal's party will have a vice-presidency and two ministries: a new Ministry of Families, Deregulation and Social Services, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Environment, as explained by Vox's Extremaduran candidate, Óscar Fernández, in a press conference. In fact, Fernández himself will assume the vice-presidency and one of the two ministries. "It is a satisfactory agreement," said Fernández.

The negotiation between the two parties had already been progressing in recent days, and both Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party and Santiago Abascal's party were "optimistic" about reaching an agreement soon. Finally, it has come to light this Thursday. The investiture debate and swearing-in ceremony are scheduled to take place next week. The PSOE has strongly criticized the pact, in which they see the PP "embracing the far-right." Socialist sources concluded that it was all "a problem of chairs" and, once distributed, the investiture was given the green light. "What the PP is demonstrating with Vox is not stability, but dependence," they assured.

"61 points and 74 measures"

Beyond the agreement to govern together –they also governed between 2023 and the summer of 2024–, Guardiola has explained that the pact with the far-right includes "61 points and 74 different measures" that "embrace" all areas: housing, taxation, health, and education, among others. "They are very detailed measures, and that is why the agreement has taken time to reach," said Guardiola. The Vox candidate said that if it has taken "longer than usual" it is because it is an agreement "for four years." This, as the future president celebrated, will translate into "four budgets," as detailed in the document –Guardiola called elections because she could not move forward with the accounts for this 2026.

But the fact is that reaching this point has involved a tug-of-war between the two parties. In fact, at the beginning of March, Vox said "no" to María Guardiola in what was the first attempt at investiture to preside over the Extremaduran Junta. At that time, Santiago Abascal's party demanded "certainties and guarantees" from the Popular Party. Now, the reductions in fees and taxes (IRPF, tax on documented legal acts, and tax on successions and donations, among others) are added to a determined commitment to nuclear energy (support for the Adamuz plant with the elimination of the energy ecotax) and the rejection of environmental pacts and renewable energies. The PP also decidedly joins the "explicit rejection" that Vox advocates for the commercial agreement between the EU and Mercosur.

But where the agreement document is most specific is on immigration issues, where it proposes a "national priority" clause for access to public aid or subsidized housing, and calls for the expulsion of irregular immigrants and the refusal to accept new ones by the Extremaduran government.

All in all, the pact comes four months after the regional elections were held in Extremadura and opens the way to unblocking the situation in Aragon and Castilla y León, where PP and Vox are also negotiating after the election call. In fact, in the case of Aragon, the timeline is tighter because Jorge Azcón (PP) has to be invested before May 3.