The mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, made it clear to community members this Wednesday that he expects them to approve the city council's budgets, but at this point he does not agree on his entry into the city administration. “First we need to talk about policies and budgets. and then chairs,” he said during an interview on TV3. In fact, he has been insisting for days that they are two different screens. But this morning she responded to her former partner and former mayor Ada Colau, who accused her on Tuesday in a video posted on social networks that Collboni did not want a joint government with Barcelona. “Who says no? “Yes, we want it, but first there must be an agreement on politics and then finally on the government,” he reiterated, expressing his conviction that “the agreement will be possible in the plenary session on March 22nd.”
The nuance is important because the two parts are castled. The mayor says that the agreements are being made in parts and recalls that he has a budget agreement with ERC. And the lower house is demanding both folders at the same time: agreement on the city council's bill and joining the government. Otherwise, they threaten, they will destroy the households. Although in this case Collboni is far from the majority in plenary (he would have his 10 votes and the ERC's five, far from the 21 he needs), he could resort to the vote of confidence. A mechanism that consists in the mayor presenting the bills and automatically approving them if a majority of the municipal administration is not formed within a month.
After his warning to Colau, Collboni wanted to be conciliatory, recalling that there was agreement on housing construction, investments for lower-income neighborhoods or the tram (although he did not set a date for the start of the work). “These coincidences make me think that there will be an agreement like the ERC.” The mayor also recalled that “the PSC has just supported the ERC budget in the Generalitat without asking for membership in the government.” Or that he himself promoted the PSC's support for the budget of former mayor Xavier Trias without being in government, supporting Colau in 2016 when they were not yet government partners. “I didn't ask for a chair, we need to talk about politics and the budget; and then chairs.”
Regarding tourism, the mayor of Barcelona has announced that, according to the tourist housing regulations drawn up by the government, he intends “the number to be zero in Ciutat Vella”. The Catalan government, with the support of the PSC, passed a decree obliging it to convert it into a regular law, which stipulates that in five years the city councils will be able to decide, based on a city plan, how many tourist apartments to accommodate and where in their territory. “We will significantly reduce the total, as we said, and reduce it to zero in the most polluted areas, especially in Ciutat Vella, if the new regulation allows it, we will press it thoroughly.” Collboni has defended that The supply of beds in Barcelona should not grow. “It is very important for the economy, but it has a limit and we have reached it. With the changes we are making, we cannot under any circumstances exceed the current ones.” The hotel city plan currently only allows for the opening of new establishments under very restrictive conditions and on the outskirts of the city.
You can follow EL PAÍS Catalunya on Facebook and Xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter
What influences the most is what happens next. So you don't miss anything, subscribe.
Subscribe to
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_