This Thursday, Mayor Jaume Collboni took advantage of the traditional conference organized every year by the College of Journalists of Catalonia to show off his project, roadmap and great horizons. The socialist assured that Barcelona is currently facing a transformation process similar to those of the great universal exhibitions and the Olympic Games themselves, that the City Council and other public administrations will invest in the city and the metropolitan area over the next twelve years more than 10,600 million euros, that the Municipal Investment Plan (PIM) of this mandate contemplates an expenditure of up to 2,829 million in the improvement of public space, in the promotion of housing, in neighborhood facilities…
And in this way Collboni more or less escaped the latest maneuver of his former partner and former mayor. Ada Colau tried to take advantage of the third to eclipse the mayor’s traditional conference and once again insisted on linking the support of the commons for the socialists’ municipal budget proposals to the signing of a governability agreement, upon her entry into the executive. municipal. And on this occasion, in this redouble of her pressure on the socialists, the common people did not speak so much of ultimatums and last chance as of non-negotiable conditions.
But Mayor Collboni did not give up or let them make his afternoon bitter. We’ll see who he makes an agreement with and when he makes it. Faced with insistent questions from journalists Enric Sierra, Eva Arderius, Jordi Corbalan, Neus Tomàs and Joan Morros, he had no problem highlighting with great humor everything that currently separates him from his former partner. The responses were tremendously forceful. Yes, Barcelona needs a much bigger airport. The union of the two tram lines through Diagonal Avenue is not so urgent. The Eixample is already somewhat overloaded with large works, the district needs to breathe… And on top of that, Mayor Collboni is completely determined to reform the rule that requires 30% of each development to be dedicated to public housing, because the rule in principle untouchable for the common people does not work, said the socialist once again, because we have to review it so that it is really effective and really improves the very poor conditions of access to housing for so many Barcelonans.
And on top of that, he once again made it clear that his main objective is to approve the City Council’s budgets in an ordinary way in the municipal plenary session on March 22, which we will see later what happens with the city government, than to oppose the proposed accounts. It really means opposing the historic transformation that Barcelona is facing. We talked about the renovations of Meridiana Avenue and Balmes Street, the recovery of 32 block interiors in the Eixample, the new promenade and, in fact, a lot of projects that have been underway for years that now cannot be stopped. Collboni also had no problem recognizing that all this is the merit of many people. And in this way he left the ball in everyone else’s court.
Collboni has now been mayor for 258 days. And since his inauguration he has not stopped hearing the refrain that such a meager municipal government with only a dozen councilors barely has any room for maneuver, that it can do nothing other than put pressure on its urban guards and its cleaning employees so that the citizens notice the action of their government, which has to reach an agreement as soon as possible. Now, in reality on the counterattack, the socialist is trying to turn the tables. Yesterday, at the Barcelona Design Museum, in the new setting of the traditional conference, he said that he is a very happy man. Because he has the best job you can have. And on top of that he has it in the best city in the world. “We will continue to dialogue with everyone, without dogmatism.”
