The works on the Eixample superblock have marked the final stretch of Ada Colau’s mandate and it is clear that they will be one of the central issues of the electoral campaign. Faced with this scenario, the PSC candidate for mayor of Barcelona wanted to position himself clearly during his intervention in the cycle of luncheons-discussion with the head of the list for the municipal elections organized by the CÃrculo Ecuestre.
For Jaume Collboni, the next mandate should be to “wait and digest the changes”, without delving into more large-scale works until the effects of the transformation of streets such as Consell de Cent and Girona are clear. “There is no going back, but if I am mayor there will be no more works in the next four years except for the recovery of green spaces inside the block,” Collboni assured during the talk with the deputy director of La Vanguardia, Enric Sierra.
The socialist leader also incorporates a budget element to stop developing Colau’s plan to convert up to 21 streets in the Eixample area into green axes. “It is economically unfeasible for the City Council, it would eat up the investment of two terms without being able to do anything else in the rest of the city,” said the first deputy mayor until recently, acknowledging that if it were up to him he would not have done the Sometimes the works of the green axes, Via Laietana, the tram, the Meridiana… “because the final situation has been a blockage of mobility due to the accumulation of works”.
That same philosophy of putting the brakes on to advance at a different pace is also transferred by the socialist leader to the junction of the tram on Diagonal. According to Collboni, “common sense dictates that the connection must be made once it reaches Verdaguer” but without Colau’s haste, who intends to start the work until Francesc Macià as soon as the current ones are finished. For the PSC candidate, although the tram connection is guaranteed, after all the works that are underway, citizens deserve a break. Even so, he defines it as a priority, the same as the metro, despite the fact that in this case it is the responsibility of the Generalitat: “The metro is the transport that sews up the metropolis, line 9 must be finished and the commitment to do 13 must be fulfilled more metro stops in Badalona and Espluguesâ€.
The development of Mayor Collboni’s city ideas has brought together a large representation of the business and economic world of the Catalan capital, among whom were the president of the CÃrculo Ecuestre, Antonio Delgado, and the vice president, Enrique Lacalle. They have also covered the candidate number 2 on the list, Maria Eugènia Gay; the current councilor of Hacienda, Montserrat BallarÃn; the Government delegate in Barcelona, ​​Carlos Prieto; and the former mayor, NarcÃs Serra.
Faced with an electoral appointment in which Trias, Colau and Collboni are very close in the polls, the socialist wanted to distance himself from the commons – “what separates us is the way of governing” – and especially from the candidacy that Junts supports. “Would a pro-independence mayor have gotten new halls for Barcelona? And what about the America’s Cup?†asked the PSC candidate, convinced that “if Trias won the elections we would hear a bottle of champagne being uncorked in Waterlooâ€, in reference to Carles Puigdemont.
Whether the winner of the elections toasts on the night of May 28 before such tight hypothetical results will depend on whether he can end up being mayor or it happens to him like Ernest Maragall in 2019, when for the first time the winner of the elections in Barcelona did not know he became mayor after the pact of the commons with the socialists and the support for the investiture of the party of Manuel Valls. “The historic situation of 2019 is not what it is now, I will respect the result of the elections and whoever wins will be mayor, it is the democratic principle”, Collboni concluded.
