Eva Parera: "The occupations are free and they are infesting Barcelona"

Eva Parera heads a party with a municipal vocation that has little more than a year of life. Valents will be presented in May in 150 municipalities, also in Barcelona, ??where Parera entered 2019 at the hands of Manuel Valls. In the last elections to the Generalitat she presented herself as an independent on the PP list and she left Parliament a few months ago to focus on the mayoral race.

Where do you put Valents? Is he more to the right than the PP?

I don’t like to situate myself in a space, I prefer to be in the center. Everyone fits here and what defines who we are are the proposals we make in each municipality. In one year of life we ??have been able to attract people who came from different political formations, from the PP, Cs or the PSC.

Are you concerned about the fragmentation of the so-called constitutionalist vote?

The problem in Catalonia is that the vote for constitutionalism is not fragmented, it is unified at home. The Cs and PP electorate is at home and does not feel represented by them or by the pro-independence forces. They were waiting for a political force like Valents to appear.

You assure that you will not do as Valls did and that you will not agree with Ada Colau or Ernest Maragall, what are your essential programmatic axes?

Valents’ will is to be decisive to be in the municipal government. The programmatic lines are clear: first, act very strongly with insecurity and illegal occupations. We are experiencing a problem in the city in which everyone is turning their backs and nobody is doing anything. We must restore order and civility in the city. In the economic aspect, reverse everything. We are degrading Barcelona in a way that will be difficult to recover. Now everything is a continuous no and the administration must work for yes.

Beyond the denial of the model defended by Ada Colau, what is her city model?

You have to start managing positively. The administration needs to step back. Today the message is that I don’t trust you, I know more than you and I tell you how you have to move, how you have to work and what business you have to open. Anyone who wants to open a business must be allowed to do so in a simple way and with little bureaucracy, without many procedures, with few costs, subsidizing self-employed fees until you start to generate income, quick licenses in 48 hours. We have to tell the developers that we want them to come. We have to understand that Barcelona is a tourist city and that we cannot just put obstacles.

Is it necessary to regulate tourism in the city in some way?

No. Tourism represents more than 15% of GDP. It generates economic activity and economic activity generates jobs. We cannot believe in an administration that only creates civil servants. This is unsustainable and leads us to absolute bankruptcy. The administration must facilitate economic recovery by allowing companies to create jobs. We have also seen it, when we were confined, we saw a city without tourism, a dead city. We cannot work to have a dead city.

And doesn’t that force us to look for alternatives to tourism?

So that? Here the automobile sector, the tourism sector, the cultural sector, the small business sector can coexist… The big problem that Barcelona has compared to other European cities is that we do not have a definitive project. We want to be a Barcelona brand, in many different areas.

Doesn’t the America’s Cup represent that this understanding is possible?

Yes, but the problem is that the City Council does not understand that the private sector is an ally and treats it as an enemy. The same happens with the Mobile, we have gone in four years from a mayor who was strongly opposed to understanding that this was a benefit for the city.

Do the tram works have to be finished?

The tram should not have been started. Unfortunately it will have to be seen what the cost of reversing it is, but it should not be between Francesc Macià and Verdaguer. It is a terrible ERC idea, with a cost that Barcelona cannot afford. It will generate side effects and loss of income for many businesses and destroys mobility.

Which of your proposals is non-negotiable?

We must talk about how the police are managed, which today is locked up in the police stations for political instruction. We have to have police on the street, we have to ask for more Mossos, we have to promote more agents, we have to ask for the collaboration of the National Police… we are a terrorist objective point. Nobody speaks but we were white and you have to be alert. What is happening on the street, from security to lack of cleanliness, spreads to other layers of activity. If you have an insecure city, there is less movement, less economic activity, less tourism, less investment…

What other measures do you propose?

Tax cuts are also essential. Yes or yes, the prohibitive regulations for builders must be reversed. And yes, yes and yes, immediately confront the illegal occupations. It is a plague that is filling the city and that cannot be allowed. You have to stop sending the message that crime is free, that occupying is free. You have to understand that they are criminals and you have to act as such.

Should we take cars out of the city or not?

The question is not simple. The municipal government has declared war against cars and motorcycles, and that doesn’t make any sense. There are other ways to combat pollution. The large axes cannot be blocked because then we are collapsing the smaller roads. Let’s encourage the electric car and let the City Council begin to set an example with its municipal fleet by electrifying the city.

Are bike lanes here to stay?

Some yes and some no. The city should have bike lanes but not in the express axes. They are destroying the Eixample in an irresponsible way. The Pla Cerdà was perfect because it was a plan thought out many years in advance and allowed changes to be absorbed in a very dignified way and that has been completely destroyed by destroying Aragó, destroying La Diagonal and now with the superblock, which has devastating side effects and has to disappear. Luckily we are still in time to reverse it.