Jaume Collboni has very advanced negotiations to incorporate ERC into the government of the city of Barcelona in the coming weeks. Various sources consulted by La Vanguardia have described as very probable the entry of the five members of Esqquerra Republicana into the team of socialist mayor Jaume Collboni. The agreement with ERC would leave open, according to these same sources, the possibility that BComú would also join the executive and therefore a left-wing tripartite would be formed in the City Council of the Catalan capital.
The recent departure of the ex-socialist Consistory of Ernest Maragall has opened a hitherto unsuspected door for the expansion of the municipal government. Although the ERC group, now led by Elisenda Alamany, has announced its intention to strongly oppose Jaume Collboni’s government, the truth is that the contacts in recent days have served to explore a path unknown until recently. An entry into the Barcelona government, which although no one dares to take for granted is on the right track, would allow ERC to abandon the secondary role to which it seemed condemned in the Catalan capital. Furthermore, an agreement in the Barcelona City Council would facilitate the relationship with the PSC in the Parliament with a view to future agreements such as the budget of the Generalitat.
Yesterday, Jaume Collboni postponed at the last minute the meeting he had planned with Ada Colau and that the commons had been in charge of publicizing last weekend. The meeting, suspended for “agenda reasons”, could be held today. This meeting was intended to resume negotiations around a possible government pact, an agreement that broadens the base of the municipal executive and allows it to carry out this year’s City Council budgets. It is known that the commons, since the same day of Collboni’s investiture, back in June last year, have been insisting to the mayor about the need to close an agreement in which they want the Republican Left to be involved.
An entente of socialists and republicans would not guarantee a majority for Collboni since it would only add 15 of the 41 councilors that make up the plenary council of the City Council. On the other hand, the sum of the three left-wing formations would allow him to greatly exceed that absolute majority, since he would reach 24 councilors.
Since the bloc opposition prevented the mayor from approving the municipal budgets for 2024, which led to an extension of last year’s budgets, and even in the previous months, Jaume Collboni has found in the former mayor Xavier Trias a very important dialogue. more fluid than with his former BComú partners, who even went so far as to promote a disapproval of the mayor in the municipal plenary session. Esquerra had barely appeared on the scene until last December 22, when Ernest Maragall?said goodbye to the City Council.
In this first half year of mandate, the PSC has found many more affinities with the Trias group. In fact, Collboni and the leader of Junts in the Barcelona City Council maintain a very good relationship despite the fact that the socialist leader acceded to the mayor’s office that seemed reserved for Trias, winner of the last municipal elections, thanks to a maneuver in which He had as accomplices not only the Cimunes, but also the Popular Party. Why then does Collboni prefer to avoid a government agreement with Junts that would guarantee him an absolute majority with 21 of the 41 councilors of the City Council? The answer, according to the sources consulted by this newspaper, must be sought far away from Barcelona, ??specifically in Waterloo. And the socialist mayor does not trust at all the most radical sector of Junts, which has the former president of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, as a reference.
