The PSC saves Sílvia Orriols' budgets in Ripoll

BarcelonaRipoll's municipal government was bringing the approval of the budgets to the plenary session this Thursday without having secured the necessary support, and the mayor, Silvia Orriols, had threatened with a new vote of confidence if they did not go through. Alianza, with six of the seventeen councilors in the plenary, only needed a simple majority, meaning more votes in favor than against. And it has achieved it, surprisingly, thanks to the abstention of the PSC and the casting vote of the mayor in the second round of voting. This is the first time Alianza has approved a budget with the opposition's support.

The abstention of the two PSC councilors and the favorable vote of the independent councilor from Som-hi Ripoll, Joaquim Colomer, have allowed Orriols to approve the accounts. With this vote and Alianza's six, they have totaled seven, the same as those against: Junts (3), ERC (2, due to the absence of one councilor) and CUP (2). With this tie, the mayor's casting vote allowed the accounts to prosper in an extraordinary plenary session held this Thursday, which lasted until midnight after being postponed in March due to the death of the mayor's father.

The wounds left open by the failure to oust Orriols from the mayorship a year ago still sting, and this has been the reason cited by the socialists to allow the approval of the accounts. "The PSC abstains to avoid the scenario of a vote of confidence and to prevent Ripoll from being put back in the spotlight, although we have plenty of reasons to vote against it," admitted the socialists' spokesperson, Enric Pérez. A decision that is at least controversial because the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, has identified the far-right as democracy's greatest enemy and has clashed with Orriols several times in Parliament. The mayor has thanked the PSC for their "responsibility" in allowing the budgets to be approved.

A year ago, given the impossibility of approving the accounts, the leader of Aliança Catalana submitted to a vote of confidence. This gave the opposition a month to push for a motion of no confidence to oust her from the mayoralty, but when the agreement seemed to be made, Junts withdrew from the pact, at the behest of the national leadership, which saw an operation like this as counterproductive midway through the term. Beyond the fact that the 2025 budget was automatically approved because the motion of no confidence did not succeed within the legal deadline, the scars from that new failure have not healed.

This is demonstrated by the fact that both Junts, as well as ERC and the CUP, have seen their candidates step down or announce that they will not run again to open a new chapter in Ripoll's politics.  The spokesperson for Esquerra, Chantal Pérez, who also announced that she is withdrawing from the political front line, acknowledged during her speech in the plenary session that her party did not want to get involved "in last year's circus", but made it clear that they could not support a budget they did not agree with.

The budget that has been approved amounts to 14.1 million euros and is the first that Orriols has managed to push through without resorting to a vote of confidence. Furthermore, it includes more than 6 million linked to various entities attached to the Ripoll town hall. The mayor has emphasized that the 2026 accounts have been based on "guaranteeing the safety of the people of Ripoll", for example, by "technifying and equipping the local police with the necessary tools and resources". Orriols has boasted of having "reduced all crime rates and we must work to keep them down". The accounts therefore opt for a "continuist" policy where security is one of the strategic areas of the municipal team, as Orriols never tires of repeating.