The new municipal government of Barcelona started yesterday, maintaining most of the structure inherited from the bipartite party that was in charge of the City Council until last Thursday, the 15th, the date on which the government commission shared by BComú councilors met for the last time. and the PSC. The day was to get in touch with the new situation and it will not be until a few days from now, probably until Thursday, when the government commission will meet again – this time already monocolor and reduced – that the first measures will be announced with the that the socialists want to visualize the change in the mayor’s office.
These first decisions, as the mayor Jaume Collboni pointed out in the interview published yesterday in La Vanguardia, will have to do with two aspects, cleaning and maintenance and security, which will be key in the first months of this government in open minority and while The possibility of new incorporations that today –everything can change after the general elections on July 23– has the commons as the main candidates for entry has not materialized.
Collboni wants his first measures to be effective as well as gimmicky. His plans do not include the stoppage of projects already underway, although he has already announced that he will not give continuity to some marked with the Colau seal, such as the green axes.
The coincidence of the formation of the new government with the beginning of the summer reinforces the idea of ??visualizing the change on the most conflictive scenario, that of the public space. A shock plan to reinforce the cleanup, to which the majority of municipal opposition groups could join, and a more uninhibited attitude in matters of security and civility are the weapons of the government of only 10 councilors to face a particularly delicate summer season due to the large tourist influx that is expected and due to all the effects that derive from the massive arrival of visitors to the city. It must be remembered that insecurity and dirt appear in this order in the first two places on the list of problems in Barcelona according to the latest municipal barometer made public.
Collboni keeps the management structure almost intact for the moment. It is already a tradition in Barcelona City Council that changes in the mayor’s office do not cause major shocks in most municipal areas. There is a line of continuity that is usually respected. Of the three types of managers and senior positions, those who have spent half their lives in the City Council, those with a highly technical profile and those who respond to a marked ideological affiliation, only the latter have their days or weeks numbered.
Within the planned script is the appointment as super manager of the young Albert Dalmau, the new mayor’s main collaborator and person of his highest confidence, who in the previous term was already directing the Economic Promotion area. Dalmau replaces Sara Berbel, who came to this vitally important position at the hands of the PSC and who has carried out invaluable work in the operation of the municipal machinery, something especially complicated in a context of a thorny relationship like the one they have maintained Ada Colau and Jaume Collboni. Berbel had already communicated to both politicians months ago her willingness to close her municipal stage regardless of the outcome of the elections.
The first decrees signed by the mayor already design the leadership of this municipal government to face the first weeks of the mandate. The macro area directed by the first deputy mayor Laia Bonet, with several of the most important powers of the City Council’s management (Ecology, Urban Planning, Infrastructure, Mobility, Public Space and Housing) makes what was number three on the list of the PSC in the last elections in number two of the City Council not only for the purposes of rank but also in practice. The magnitude of this area, equivalent to that directed up to now by the common Janet Sanz, will make it essential to appoint other executive positions of a political nature with functions that until now were exercised by councilors and that, given the precariousness of government personnel, will perform appointed commissioners expressly. This circumstance will occur with complete certainty in Mobility and also in other areas dependent on other deputy mayors, for example, in Culture, where former councilor Xavier Marcé has many options to occupy a commissioner.
The second on Collboni’s list on May 28, the dean of the Bar Association of Barcelona, ??Maria Eugènia Gay, in addition to initially being in charge of Social Rights, among other responsibilities, will assume the direction of the district most elusive to the interests of the PSC, that of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi.
Also, the third deputy mayor, Albert Batlle, has more work to do, since the Ciutat Vella district is added to the Security area in this mandate, as Collboni promised in the campaign.
The poker of councilors on which the socialist power in the Consistory will be supported is completed by a new councilor in the City Council but with extensive political and management experience. Former mayor of Manresa, former president of the port of Barcelona, ??former Minister of Labor and Industry of the Generalitat and recently general director of Mercabarna, Jordi Valls is responsible for keeping municipal finances safe which, according to Mayor Collboni, are very healthy and that they must allow a certain budgetary and investment joy in the coming years.
