Meeting between Jaume Collboni and Xavier Trias last July.
What seemed impossible just three months ago is now on the table in Barcelona: the possibility that Junts could join the minority government of socialist mayor Jaume Collboni. An alliance that would bring an absolute majority and that would have sounded like a Martian on June 17, because in the last minute of the investiture session, Collboni, thanks to the support of the Lower House, wrested the post of mayor from Ada Colau and the PP from the election winner Xavier Trias. “There is no point in entering just to enter. If it means stepping in to govern the city well, there is no way we can refuse. It remains to be seen whether Collboni loves us or not, I have signs that he likes Mrs. Colau. I think we will meet and see,” he said this Monday in an interview on SER Catalunya. A few words that indicate that Junts holds the key to an eventual government of Pedro Sánchez.
Since the party led by Carles Puigdemont played a minor role in Congress until before the summer, the weight of its seven seats was upgraded to 23-J. Junts’ leading role has triggered a domino effect that is sweeping the Barcelona city council, where some sectors of the economy would also welcome the alliance, more towards the center than because of Colau’s politics. When the parties are asked, the official version is usually that Barcelona is a separate, watertight folder and outside of other negotiations. Sources around Collboni do not attach any importance to Trias’ words. However, reality has shown several times that conflicts arise between two and three institutions that, for example, approve budgets: most recently between the City Council, the Generalitat and the government, between the Lower House, the ERC and the Socialists.
And while Trias is ready to agree with Collboni on a government or the 2024 budget, ordinary citizens are playing all or nothing. Last week they put pressure on Collboni, ensuring that the pact either includes accounting and entry into the municipal executive or there is no agreement. Colau still remembers the day after the elections that the tripartite group between them, the PSC and the ERC, includes 24 councilors, a comfortable majority in the Barcelona plenary session. Both Colau and Trias are former mayors who both assured that they would step down after the elections if they did not win, but three months later the two continue to lead their respective municipal groups. And by the same argument: have everything arranged before you go.
Trias’ words in the last few days and especially during the above interview are very clear. While on Friday he said that he was ready to talk to Collboni but would not call him, this Monday he revealed that he had already called him: “So we can see each other.” And he even suggested the possibility To include ERC in the equation, with which he had agreed on a government program in the Council before Collboni took away his chairmanship: “He has to decide why he decides, it has to be with a program. I have signed more than 100 points with ERC. If you read it and agree, we can work together.”
In any case, Trias assured that he would leave the town hall no matter what happens, whether there is an agreement or whether he remains in the opposition. “I have already said that I am either mayor or go home. “I will neither act as an altar boy nor as an opposition leader,” he said, choosing Jordi Martí Galbis as his successor. Martí Galbis has been a loyal collaborator of the former mayor since Trias was a member of Congress. One of the reasons Trias gives among his staff for expanding his presence on the council is that he is looking forward to officiating the wedding ceremony of his No. 2, whose wedding is scheduled for next October. Trias assures that as a city councilor he will not eat nougat next Christmas.
Trias prides himself on having gone it alone in the last part of his political career. This Monday he explained that the Socialist Party provoked the coup of February 23 with the aim of stopping Spain’s autonomous development in the midst of a democratic transition. “No one can believe that this was a coup by Mr. Tejero; Maybe there are still some innocent people who believe in it,” said the Junts boss in Barcelona. “They will tell me that I’m gagá, that I’m old, but it’s obvious,” he said.
What influences the most is what happens next. So you don’t miss anything, subscribe.
Subscribe to
You can follow EL PAÍS Catalunya on Facebook and Twitteror sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter