The former mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau wants a “coalition government” in the city and demands a “left-wing pact” from the socialist Jaume Collboni in exchange for guaranteeing stability. As she has pointed out, without a government agreement there will be no support from the commons for the next municipal budgets, and she has warned him: “We will not give you a blank check.”
In an interview with EFE, Colau, who leads the Barcelona en Comú group at the Barcelona City Council, assured that Collboni already knows that “now he has to win the mayoralty” demonstrating “leadership” and clarifying “what model of the city he has “.
“He cannot govern alone, with ten councilors it is impossible to govern Barcelona, ??or approve budgets, or do anything” and, although he can “hold out for a few months, he will have to make pacts” and will have to “choose between the JxCat city model and Xavier Trias” or that of a “left-wing pact”, the former mayor stressed.
Colau has explained that this week he has transferred to Collboni that “left-wing pacts do not fall from heaven”, but “they have to be won”.
“What we will not do in any case is give him a blank check, because it is one thing to vote for him as mayor and another is to give him blank checks,” he pointed out.
Consequently, he added, “Collboni will have to clarify whether he leans to the right or to the left” and “if he wants to talk about budgets, he will have to talk to us about a government agreement.”
It would not make sense, he has warned, “to provide some budgets” to the mayor “and then make the agreements with JxCat; we have enough experience not to fall into this error.”
“We have been very honest and transparent, we have voted for Collboni as the lesser evil and by default” and “he knows that he was elected mayor at the last minute,” he pointed out.
According to the leader of the commons, the time has come for Collboni to “lead”, because “the mayor’s office has fallen from heaven, but left-wing pacts do not fall from heaven, he will have to work for them.”
“He will have to offer a coalition proposal so that Barcelona has the government it needs, one that is stable, strong and with a large majority that allows budgets to be approved and all the investments that this city needs to be carried out,” he stated.
Regarding the first decisions adopted by Collboni, he indicated that for the moment he “lives on the inertia” of the previous mandate: “He has been announcing things that we had already worked on in the previous government, but a city like Barcelona cannot be governed by inertia” , has underlined.
“As mayor, he has to roll up his sleeves, summon us, make offers and open negotiations to form a coalition government, which is perfectly possible,” he insisted.
Colau hopes that Collboni will specify after the August holidays “what model of city he wants”, because “the budgets have to begin to be negotiated in September and, before that, the coalition government must be specified.”
“You have to start talking about budgets in September. Therefore, at the beginning of September you have to finalize a coalition government negotiation, because you won’t be able to talk about the budget without talking about a coalition government. September is the date on which will not be able to continue living from inertia”, he pointed out.
For Colau, the objective is to achieve “a coalition of the left”, which is “what the vast majority of the citizens of Barcelona want, and the question is whether Collboni is clear about it or not”.
In order to reach an absolute majority, in addition to the votes of the PSC and the commons, Colau hopes to be able to add ERC to a hypothetical pact of the left, which he sees as “clearly willing to speak”: “I thank you, because what I propose is that the new budget agreement has to be for three”, he commented.
“I want a stable government with a sufficient progressive majority. We have spoken directly with ERC and I hope that these conversations will be held in three,” he added.
