On Tuesday, the 2025 budget bill was due to have been presented for approval by the Balearic Parliament. But President Marga Prohens withdrew the budget from the agenda.
Her Partido Popular party, which forms the government (in minority), hopes to be able to secure approval on Tuesday next week, the PP having entered into negotiations with the left-wing opposition parties.
These negotiations were the result of a rupture with Vox. The PP have relied on Vox support ever since the elections in 2023, but the pact for post-election agreements with Vox is as good as dead and buried.
In principle there is agreement between the PP and the left. The PP have accepted an opposition demand not to repeal the law of democratic memory, something that Vox have been insisting on. In return the opposition will not block approval of the original text of the government's much-publicised administrative simplification law, which first came into force by decree in March.
There are points still to iron out, so this isn't as yet a done deal. If it comes off though, it will mean that the government doesn't have to roll over the 2024 budget into next year. It wouldn't completely rule out contemplating an election, but this would be less likely.
Vox had announced that it was willing to seek an agreement with the PP to support the budget, as the PP had opened itself to "negotiating ways of agreement on the matter of linguistic freedom". The PP flatly deny this. "We will not swap the budget in return for destroying coexistence in the classrooms," said government spokesperson, Antoni Costa.
Vox had made language in education a key budget negotiation tactic, insisting that Castellano is given at least the same weight as Catalan as a teaching language.