José Luis Martínez-Almeida has just returned from an official trip to Brazil. The mayor of the capital of Spain has visited the city of São Paulo for three days on the occasion of the summit of the Union of Ibero-American Capital Cities (UCCI). However, this Wednesday, after landing in Barajas, the Madrid councilor issued a surprise decree. From now on, the commission for the protection of the Historical-Artistic and Natural Heritage of Madrid, which meets once a week, will not include the opposition political parties, where they exercised their points of view with a voice, but without a vote.
Almeida has justified his decision after the Government Meeting this Thursday and to questions from the media: “We want this commission to be guided by technical criteria and not by political criteria,” he said. “The PSOE likes to politicize everything, even the technicians and officials. “We are already aware of what the PSOE is doing, which, for example, has presented the State Attorney General after a blow from the Supreme Court.” Almeida refers to the latest resolution of the Supreme Court, known this Wednesday, where the high court has annulled the appointment of Dolores Delgado as court prosecutor (the highest category of the career) that the Government made in October 2022, considering that it represented an exercise in “diversion of power.” Delgado was also Minister of Justice between 2018 and 2020.
The participation of political groups in this Madrid Urban Planning commission had always been present, until the arrival of Ana Botella, mayor of the capital between December 2011 and June 2015, who also decided to expel the opposition groups. With the arrival of Manuela Carmena in 2015, Now Madrid once again included all the parties in these debate tables, with voice, but without vote. Almeida has made the decision five years after assuming the baton of command of the capital. “The new regulation contemplates a simplification of management to avoid unnecessary duplication,” the decree argues. Why now and not in 2019, when he became mayor with Ciudadanos?
“The Urban Planning delegate, Borja Carabante, was the one who made the proposal to us,” explained Almeida. “If he had made this decision earlier? Well, yes, but it was not raised and we did not make that decision.” From 2019 to 2023, the Urban Planning delegate in the capital was Mariano Fuentes, who belonged to Ciudadanos. Since last May 28, Almeida has governed the City Council with an absolute majority. “We do not understand that parties mix political interest with technical criteria, which corresponds to officials,” Almeida argued to justify the decision. “We have started the legislature like this and it is appropriate. Depoliticizing institutions is our position, in the face of a Government, that of the nation, that preys on all types of institutions. Not having a vote does not mean that one can condition the debate. The PP has never participated in these commissions because we disagreed.”
With this political decision, however, the City Council prevents the opposition from knowing in detail what is being debated at these tables, and thus avoid opposition and media criticism. This commission will meet this Friday and will discuss, among other issues, the protection of various buildings, the modification of general plans and changes of use, or special plans for historic and protected gardens and, even, the felling of trees that affects to the works on the expansion of Metro line 11, highly questioned by residents.
“The decree came to us by surprise this morning,” says the spokesperson for Socialist Urbanism, Antonio Giraldo, by phone. “It is a very useful commission. They deprive us of observing this debate. If this is the commitment to transparency and accountability. They fill their mouths with transparency and democracy and participation and do the opposite. The PSOE has been there every week, proposing, giving voice, and arguing. We do not want to play politics with this. It is shameful that the main observers of the citizens, who are the political groups, are removed.” The spokesperson for Más Madrid en Urbanismo, Álvaro Fernández-Heredia, also criticizes the decision, in a telephone conversation: “He does not want to have witnesses in a commission where tree felling is assessed. This is part of absolutism, they have no transparency and exclude the opposition. “They want to continue making a city as they please and destroying the heritage without witnesses who can point the finger at them.”
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