The Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, during an appearance this Wednesday at the Saló de Cent of the Barcelona City Council.Europa Press
Urgent and surprising call this Wednesday to the Barcelona City Council. Midday. He left Cent and the senior staff of the consistory. In this scenario, Mayor Jaume Collboni has issued an order and announced that next Tuesday he will vote in an extraordinary commission on the second draft budget for this year. With the vote, the Socialist is trying to force the opposition groups to take a step (support him or turn their backs on him) when voting on the bill, as a precursor to a possible full-term government alliance. Collboni has recalled that “all administrations” need budgets, although he has denied that he “links” the budgets of the City Council to those of the Generalitat or the Government. “We don't link them, but there is a context, and the context sometimes facilitates, sometimes it hinders,” he clarified.
With only 10 councilors in a council where the majority is 21 councillors, adding Junts (11 councilors) or combining Commons (nine) and ERC (five) is the most logical way of providing support. In the event that the first vote fails, Collboni has the option of resorting to the vote of confidence: a mechanism through which he presents his bills in plenary and, if an alternative majority is not achieved within a month, he can remove the mayor from office . – an unlikely option with current arithmetic – are automatically approved. Former mayor Ada Colau used this formula twice during her first term in office, in 2017 and 2018.
The mayor communicated his intention to municipal groups last night after the Ciutat de Barcelona awards ceremony, asking them to allow editing “out of responsibility and coherence” in projects that all parties have supported. “My commitment was clear: Barcelona has a government but no budget for 2024. My decision is to proceed with the approval, to approve it this Thursday in the Government Commission and to present it to an extraordinary Commission next Tuesday the 20th. Collboni said. “Barcelona cannot stop, we are taking this step to provide new budgets and not to let the city miss an opportunity,” he insisted on a theme he sees as “transcendent”.
Seven months have passed since Collboni's investiture in extremis and he has declared that he wants to decide before the spring whether he will include partners in the government or remain in the minority. The Socialists have always said that they favor a “progressive agreement” that would include the lower house and the ERC, but the mayor himself reiterates that the Republicans will veto Colau's party. Another option that has gained traction is a sociovergence, in which Junts, the municipal group led by former mayor Xavier Trias, awaiting an outcome (whatever it may be), withdraws from active politics. So far, both citizens and neoconvergents have called for joint negotiations on the numbers and a possible government. To this condition, he responded that he invites them “to a dialogue to talk about the accounts and, if necessary, to a more in-depth debate.” “Step by step,” he repeated when asked whether there would be a coalition government in the spring.
Collboni presented his first budget in October. Expansive accounts that have grown year after year over the last decade, reaching 3,735 million, 4% more than in 2023. The investment was also a record: 777 million euros, equivalent to 905 euros of the Municipal Institute of the House. On a more political level, in this project the socialist government suppressed taxes associated with tourism. But the partners with the most weight in supporting the bills, Junts and Commons, turned their backs on the mayor, who withdrew them before the first vote at the end of October so as not to lose them. The accounts were therefore frozen, resulting in the 2023 accounts having to be formally renewed before the end of the year. With the expansion, the city left 17% of the planned investments, 117 million euros, in limbo.
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