PSC councilors in Ripoll, Enric Pérez and Anna Belén Avilés, have offered their positions to the party after abstaining in the plenary that allowed Mayor Sílvia Orriols to approve the 2026 budgets. The PSC federation in Girona expressed absolute disagreement and summoned them for explanations. The move avoided a confidence vote like last year's.
In a plenary session that ended past midnight on April 9, Ripoll's Aliança Catalana municipal government approved the 2026 budgets in extremis, worth nearly 15 million euros for a population of 10,800. The PSC's two councilors' abstention created an initial 7-7 tie, broken by Mayor Orriols' casting vote; she also serves as a Parlament deputy.
The socialist councilors justified their abstention by criticizing the budgets for offering "no real transformation" and failing to address local needs, but prioritized avoiding "putting Ripoll back in the media circus," as happened last year with a confidence vote. They later stated in a release that they did not sufficiently consider that "the fundamental principle of avoiding any collaboration with the far right is superior."
The PSC Federation for Girona provinces issued a statement of "absolute disagreement," noting the decision lacked their prior approval or knowledge. "The socialists' political project is based on defending democracy [...] and is absolutely incompatible with any stance promoting exclusion [...] or normalizing hate speech," the regional leadership stated, referencing Aliança Catalana's ideology.
Ripoll is Catalonia's only town council led by this far-right independentist party, following the June 2023 investiture when Junts refused to ally with the left on Carles Puigdemont's orders.
