There was no final agreement on the budget in the Barcelona City Council between socialists and ordinary citizens, although the positions came closer. Mayor Jaume Collboni had the support of the ERC, but his votes were insufficient. Barcelona en comú announced before Friday’s plenary session that it will abstain, so the mayor will have to resort to the question of confidence again to approve them. This mechanism involves the presentation of the budget project in plenary session and if, within a month, an alternative government does not meet to oust the mayor, it is automatically approved.
In an unusual early vote in November, when bills are normally voted on before Christmas, there was a definitive slamming of the people’s door, which the spokesperson of the municipal group, Gemma Tarafa, had announced in advance. Ordinary people see a “lack of ambition” in the PSC’s housing policies, which ultimately only got a yes from the ERC. Junts, PP and Vox voted against. All in all, the socialists give a positive reading of the outcome, for the evolution of the municipality of Barcelona from the resounding no of a few days ago to the definitive abstention.
Tarafa placed housing as the main axis of the final decision. “As far as housing is concerned they have a good predisposition, but when it comes to action they apologize, we cannot wait for reports and study commissions, the problems are there and the neighbors can no longer wait,” he said of the request to regulate speculative purchases and criticizing the fact that seasonal rentals have not yet been regulated. And he warned the mayor: “He will not be able to have an agreement with the city’s left.” In addition to regulating speculative purchases and allocating funds for the tourism promotion of accommodation, ordinary people called for the pedestrianization of the streets and a shock plan against homelessness.
Collboni took the floor at the end of the debate and announced that he will sign the decree to activate the issue of trust, which will be the second of his mandate after that of 2024, therefore in a more tense climate. The mayor this time thanked “the tone addressed to all groups”, and in particular to the ERC, and celebrated that the city “will have budgets without increasing taxes on residents and SMEs, and with resources that will go to the fund, to guarantee the right to stay in the city, with record funds for housing”. To community members, the mayor thanked them for “the effort at dialogue” and announced that “some of their proposals on housing, trial and error and studying speculative buying will move forward.”
The deputy mayor of the Economy, Jordi Valls, defended an expansive budget of 4,180 million euros, of which 860 million in investments, which represents 3.6% of the GDP and “is a driving force for the city” and which “does not increase the taxation of families and focuses on people, homes and security”. He responded to ordinary people that “belief must be accompanied by responsibility, with safe and solvent measures.” And regarding the limitation of speculative purchases, he appealed to “legal certainty, because it requires changes to the laws”, which is why he showed himself willing to support the measure when it is blocked.
The peculiar thing is that this time the question of trust was reached with the two sides in disagreement, socialists and ordinary citizens, celebrating having held “some very interesting political debates”. Lieutenant Valls said it this week and sources in Barcelona mutually admit it. On the part of the PSC, it argues its decisions based on the legal certainty of the decisions and recalls the resources that common policies such as the Consell de Cent superilla had. On the part of Barcelona as a whole there is not a single reason for the abstention, we need to open the focus and list the causes.
First of all, we are past the halfway point of the term, when any vote becomes complicated and we look to the elections. Two, the president of the Barcelona municipal group, Janet Sanz, will say goodbye to the city council before Christmas, after 16 years as a councilor (two in government with mayor Ada Colau) and is measuring her last moves: it wasn’t convenient for her to join the right’s no. Three, the background is the housing policies of the city of Barcelona, in which the municipalities have been very ambitious and the PSC has taken over in speeches, but not so much in deeds: the regulation of seasonal rentals was Collboni’s promise last year in Sanz in the negotiation of accounts and ordinances, Tarafa recalled. And four, the pedestrian streets requested by ordinary people are basic traffic routes, which are very complex to convert into green axes.
The ERC, through the voice of its advisor Jordi Castellana, celebrated its pact with the government, “an agreement with resources to integrate measures in tourism, the Catalan language and housing”. Jordi Martí, on behalf of Junts, accused the government of “being disconnected from the real daily life of the people of Barcelona” and criticized the fact that, despite the large positive economic numbers, “the city is not moving towards a more just and balanced model” and phenomena such as homelessness or the “suffocation of small traders” are growing.
