The Círculo Ecuestre hosted this Thursday, April 27, a colloquium led by Jaume Collboni, candidate of the Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSC) in the Barcelona municipal elections.

After the presentation by the president of the Círculo Ecuestre, Antonio Delgado, the leader of the PSC in Barcelona held a dialogue with Enric Sierra, deputy director of La Vanguardia, who moderated the event. All this within the framework of the Alcaldables Cycle, promoted by the club.

The PSC candidate in the municipal elections began his presentation by announcing his positive conviction regarding the results of the elections: "I am convinced that I will be the next mayor of Barcelona." Collboni explained to the members of the Círculo Ecuestre that his "experience and vitality", "the polls" and the "great team with which he appears", reaffirmed his opinion.

In his role as moderator of the colloquium, Enric Sierra wanted to ask the speaker about the possibilities of reaching an agreement with other candidates with a view to the election results. Collboni responded by saying that he will make an agreement "if necessary" and based on "three points that serve as the perimeter of the agreement: the commitment to economic growth -including the expansion of the Airport-, the protection and guarantee of social policies and the loyalty to the state and to the European institutions”. However, he made one aspect clear: "I am not running in these elections to make Ada Colau or Xavier Trias mayor."

During the interview, the deputy director of La Vanguardia asked the former mayor of Barcelona City Council from the area of Economy, Labor, Competitiveness and Finance of Barcelona City Council about his time as a government partner of Ada Colau. The candidate expressed that there were two historical moments that explain the coalition: the negotiation of Valls' votes "in exchange for the Government of Barcelona not being conditioned by the independence process" and "the management of the pandemic." Collboni stressed that "when normality returned, the differences emerged": "the Hermitage, the expansion of the Airport, the pacifications and the form of government." Despite this, he valued the achievement and implementation in this period of investments and large projects such as "the new halls, the Copa América, the transformation of the Marina del Prat Vermell, 22@ and La Sagrera", among others.

The leader of the Socialist Party of Catalonia in the Barcelona City Council declared that "the 30% reserve for subsidized housing has not worked". Faced with this situation, he proposed monetizing the 30% reserve to reactivate Barcelona's housing development: "convert the equivalence of the cost in the public housing reserve into euros."

 

The deputy mayor also gave his opinion on the Eixample superilla, stating that "it is unfeasible and the Eixample system collapses." Collboni recalled that "in Barcelona streets have been pacified since the days of Narcís Serra and Pasqual Maragall", but that it was done "by explaining the changes to the residents and measuring the consequences". The candidate of the concluded by assuring that "the works to pacify Via Laietana and Girona street block the center of the city" and that "Barcelona's mobility problem is due to urban planning policies and the planning of works carried out ”.

Next, the moderator asked the candidate about the continuation of the tram along the Diagonal. When asked, the leader of the Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSC) in the city expressed that "common sense dictates that you have to finish making the connection." In addition, he advocated "finishing L9 of the Barcelona metro", "digesting the city's urban changes" and "not doing more works in four years, except those that involve recovering the green", to which he called to "recover the interiors of Cerdà islands”.

Given the collapse of vehicles from outside Barcelona that occurs at peak times, Collboni ruled that it is a problem that can be solved "by improving the Rodalies service and adding more metro stops." He also opted to "electrify the city" with the "objective of reducing emissions and noise." Likewise, he detected illegal occupation as a city problem. For this reason, he has opted for a paradigm shift through measures such as the "legitimization of demands by the neighborhood community" or "evictions in less than 24 hours if there are no minors."

In the framework of his speech, Jaume Collboni defended the tourism policies carried out in recent years that "have opted for the quality of tourism", in the face of the "open bar policy that Trias carried out while he was in government", and "the order and the regulation of the economic activity carried out in the Eixample”. On the other hand, Collboni was dissatisfied with the cleanliness of the city, assuring that "the results are not up to the economic effort of the city."

To conclude his presentation, the mayor defended that "if we return to a pro-independence mayor we will have the objective risk of going back as a city." In view of this, he recalled that "when people talk about nostalgia for Barcelona, they talk about the Barcelona that the socialist mayors made", for this reason he made clear his intention to turn Barcelona into "a livable city, with job opportunities, that does not expel for the price of housing and that it has taken advantage of environmental challenges to be greener”, with a view to 2030.