Barcelona can boast of being the only one of the three major administrations that has approved its budget, although it was through the mechanism of the question of confidence. The Barcelona City Council now has more money than ever to invest and must activate all the promised projects. That is why the order has been given to all municipal businesses to get to work because the worst that can happen is that, having the money, there is no administrative capacity to spend it. The instruction is: “spend, spend, damn you,” as a senior municipal official joked last week, emulating the title of the Sydney Pollack film, “Dance, dance, damn you.”
After the approval of the budget, the focus of attention returns to the pacts that expand the minimum government of 10 councilors led by Mayor Jaume Collboni. It is likely that nothing will move until after the Catalan and European elections and after the agreement to invest the president of the Generalitat. The worst scenario would be a blockade that prevents the investiture and forces a repeat election at the end of autumn. In that case, Collboni would remain in the minority sine die.
However, PSC and ERC maintain their love affair created during the negotiation of the municipal budget and reinforced after the mayor’s decision to slander his former partner Ada Colau. The Republicans would already be in the municipal government if the Catalan elections had not been called. But doing so now would show the pact preferences also for the Generalitat. That’s why waiting is necessary.
According to the polls, the socialist Salvador Illa will win Sunday’s elections and it is feasible that he could choose a government partner between ERC and Junts per Catalunya. Here it will be decisive which of these two parties comes second and what role former president Carles Puigdemont will play. The political scenario is very different with or without Puigdemont. If the former president has no options to preside over the Generalitat again and, as he announced, he leaves the Parliament, the possibilities of an agreement between PSC and Junts are high.
In fact, relations between socialists and post-convergents are good, if we leave aside the sovereign issue. The last legislature they governed together in the Barcelona Provincial Council and in various city councils. The experience was so positive that they negotiated an agreement for after last year’s municipal elections whereby they would help each other form local governments wherever they were needed.
But the surprising electoral advance that President Pedro Sánchez made at the end of May broke that pattern and the confrontation over the independence movement resurfaced. The most eloquent result of this rupture was the investiture of Collboni as mayor thanks to a strange majority (PSC, BComú and PP) that snatched the mayor’s office from the winner of the elections, Xavier Trias, under the premise of preventing Barcelona from having a pro-independence mayor. . However, neither Trias nor Collboni have hidden their programmatic affinity and until very few weeks ago they negotiated, without success, a government pact that would have given them an absolute majority in the City Council.
Although the anger over the Collboni operation was huge in the ranks of Junts, the electoral arithmetic after 23J changed things and made them key to the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, whom they continue to support in the government. The next screen arrives on Sunday and any scenario is possible. So do not pay attention to what is said in the campaign about pacts because it has been shown that those words are carried away by the wind.
On the other hand, the option of a pact with ERC seems easier among the socialists, although they could require the support of Comuns-Sumar. But the bad taste in the mouth that the last tripartite left is very present in the ranks of the PSC. Skin issues are very relevant in politics.
And the option of a pro-independence government if ERC, Junts and CUP add up to the absolute majority in the Parliament? It would be inexplicable for pro-independence voters if they were not able to understand each other, although among them there are symptoms of rejection worse than heartburn, as has been seen in the last term.
We are left with the alternative of changing stickers and having Pedro Sánchez force an Illa winner of the elections to give the presidency to Junts or ERC so that they can support him in Moncloa. It is not impossible, but unlikely because it would be an immolation for the PSC, as many Catalan socialist cadres admit.
So the risk of blockage and repeat elections is real. Therefore, it is imperative that after 12M they make an effort to reach agreements because neither the country nor its capital can waste any more time.
