José Luis Martínez-Almeida, this Friday at the Cibeles Palace in Madrid.Mariscal (EFE)
December 22. Christmas lottery day. Day of the announcement that the Madrid City Council will not award the Medal of Honor to Israel – as promised, but which the chroniclers of the Villa had not recommended – and therefore announced that the insignia would be awarded to the Jewish community. Also day two plenary sessions in the Madrid City Council. One to approve the 2024 budget – the first of the PP of José Luis Martínez-Almeida with an absolute majority – and another, the monthly one, on municipal issues. The mayor of Madrid has appeared at his own request to take stock of these first six months at the helm of a more comfortable mandate of the PP, now without Ciudadanos in his arms and, above all, without the whispers of Vox. So much so that Almeida Javier Ortega criticized Smith with a vehemence rarely seen in the Cibeles Palace:
“I'm glad he's not ruling in Madrid.
So much so that on this Friday full of lotteries and plenary sessions, many cards were printed by the opposition. Rita Maestre from Más Madrid showed an old interview with the mayor in which he confessed: “I tried joints and had sex sporadically, I'm not such a strange creature.” Or: “I could fall in love with a left-wing woman: But red, red, no, let's keep them 'pink.'” During these headlines, Almeida decided to stand up and speak to one of his councilors. The last plenary session of the year was once again a classic: a lot of noise, a lot of attacks and a lot of memories of the Madrid resident most often mentioned in local political debates: Pedro Sánchez.
The Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida (c), speaks during the plenary session held this Friday at the Madrid City Hall. Marshal (EFE)
“We can confirm that Madrid,” noted Almeida, “is experiencing the best moment of its history.” A good example of this is the approval of the budgets, because they are the budgets that this city needs.” In general, the accounts of the Spanish capital for 2024 to 5,940.23 million euros, 7.2% more than the current accounts for 2022, which ended with a deficit of 357 million, the capital's first red figures in 12 years. The main projects for the first half of 2024 will be the start of underground construction of the A5 and the covering of the Ventas Bridge. Burying the A5 was a promise made by Almeida in 2019 that was not kept in the last term.
Almeida set a horizon for this new mandate focused on housing policy. “In these six months alone we have approved 20,000 additional apartments,” he said. “We will allocate 15 vacant residential plots so that the residents of Madrid will have rental apartments for 15 years.” However, there is no trace of the promises of regulations to regulate tourist housing that he promised last October.
What influences the most is what happens next. So you don't miss anything, subscribe.
Subscribe to
“The PP likes fruit,” said Más Madrid spokesperson Rita Maestre, summing up these first six months of the absolute majority of the population. “Calling the district president a son of a bitch is behind every laugh. That and the cheering of the Nazis on Ferraz Street, that and the cheering of the most genocidal government, Israel. “Six months have passed and there is nothing.” And he cited a current survey on the housing situation in the capital: eight of Madrid’s 21 districts already exceed 1,000 euros per rent.
Vox spokesman Ortega Smith began his intervention with a question: “Mr. Mayor, what should we talk about?” And he recalled what Almeida promised in the 2019 election campaign and then failed to deliver. Almeida looked at Smith resignedly. Smith returned the look with a sentence:
– Don’t cry, mayor.
PSOE spokesman Reyes Maroto recalled that the Madrid plenary session supposedly had to talk about Madrid. “We are in Madrid,” he said. And he criticized the neighbors' problems with the cleaning cantons, which were heavily criticized by the neighbors. In the middle of this intervention, the third prize of the lottery fell, which Maroto recalled at the end of his intervention:
—Today is lottery day. Merry Christmas!
Subscribe to our daily newsletter about Madrid here.