Juanma Moreno pledges continuity in Junta de Andalucía re-election bid

Expected to be proclaimed leader by his party on Thursday, Moreno pledged not to use his absolute majority to steamroll opposition forces and concluded his speech by saying that Andalucía had a fundamental role to play in Spain as a whole and called for loyalty to the central government.

Moreno proposed a continuist government programme in which he pledged to give continuity to the strengthening of public services – education, health and dependency; tax reform to make Andalucía an attractive region for investment; administrative simplification, in which he pledged to achieve the participation of local entities; and the promotion of a new economy linked to sustainability, innovation and knowledge.

Moreno placed special emphasis on the economic situation and stressed that, after overcoming the Covid-19 pandemic, Andalucía "is facing a new pandemic called inflation, which is causing a deterioration of enormous magnitude in our society".

He singled out Andalusian families as the victims of this sustained rise in prices and said that the Andalusian government would seek its own way forward, as it had done with the health crisis.

Moreno said that the regional government's budget would guarantee stability with clear and orderly public accounts. It will be, he said, a budget with a markedly social character which, in line with previous budgets, will prioritise health, education, social policies and job creation.

And he announced a new tax cut of 260 million euros for middle-income and working-class families that over the course of the legislature would have a positive impact of 620 million euros.