“Continuous and typical of a weak and unambitious government that abandons the city to inertia and idling.” This is how the Trias per Barcelona/Junts group has crossed out the Barcelona City Council budget project that the government chaired by the socialist Jaume Collboni will submit to the approval of the full Council next Friday, March 22. The main opposition group has presented a whopping 375 allegations to the budget project to “demonstrate that there is an alternative program of actions and real change in the Catalan capital that the mayor and the PSC have renounced.”
Last Wednesday the deadline for the presentation by the municipal groups of the allegations to the Barcelona City Council budget project ended, which began the process in the Economy commission on February 20 with the votes of PSC, BComú and ERC. The Trias per Barcelona group has registered a document of more than 50 pages that includes up to 375 allegations to the budget, a document that those from Junts define as an authentic “change program.”
The group led by former mayor Xavier Trias points out that the budget project being processed “is exactly the same as the one already presented and withdrawn five months ago, in October, as the government did not find any support to approve it.”
According to Junts, “this is a deferred budget, which is presented in October, kept in the drawer for five months, and is brought out again just when the Generalitat’s budget is agreed, making it clear that the interest of Barcelona and the people of Barcelona and Barcelona has not been the priority”.
The response of the main opposition group to the project agreed by PSC and ERC removes any possibility that Trias per Barcelona will support the budget next Friday, making the only option, very remote, almost impossible, that Mayor Collboni has to avoid The way to resolve the issue of trust is for the commons to accept a last-minute agreement.
Among the allegations presented by former Mayor Trias’ group, the reduction in the budgetary item of income through the vehicle tax stands out as a consequence of the loss of expected income derived from the non-approval of the proposed tax ordinances.
Also in the field of taxation, they request that the income item for the Participation in State Income take into account the possible effect of the compensation of previous liquidations, especially the possible impact due to the loss of income derived from the definitive liquidation of the 2020 PIE.
They also ask that the corresponding budget item be allocated to assume the expected increase in transfers to the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, that the corresponding budget item be allocated to assume an increase in the transfer to the Autoritat del Transport Metropolità (ATM) and another that assumes the increase in the costs of City Council services and the management of concession facilities.
In the field of urban planning, the Junts group demands that the execution of the superblock program be paralyzed until a detailed report is presented of all the planned actions and the amounts allocated to each of them. Request clarification as to whether the project writing item in this program is for new projects or whether it concerns existing assignments.
Another request is to paralyze the drafting of the project for the extension of the tram and allocate this money to the preparation of a Pedestrian Plan (objective: 0 accidents and 10 road comfort), a transition plan for surface parking (objective: no car parked on the surface) and a traffic light system with the purpose of reducing 20% ??of the city’s congestion.
Junts requests, on the other hand, to allocate a new amount of €60,000 to carry out an audit of the bike lanes or bus lanes that place pedestrians in a position of vulnerability and to reverse those that put people’s lives at risk. He also proposes in his arguments to the budget to promote a great agreement for the city’s minimum wage, incorporating a sum of 50,000 euros to prepare a proposal, first reach a political consensus, and then the public and private throughout the city, sign it and demand it from the State Goverment.
