On November 6, 2023, Monday, Barcelona hosted a day related to the “metropolitan dialogue” for which the Ibero-American Center for Strategic Urban Development (CIDEU) invited the Minister of the Presidency of the Zaragoza City Council, Ángel Lorén. The number two of the PP government team charged the City Council with the outbound AVE on Saturday, two nights in a hotel and the return train on Monday without actually attending this event. In total, 400 euros that the City Council justifies with a meeting on Saturday with a “manager” of the Port of Barcelona. The port entity has not been able to confirm that the meeting took place.
The event, of an “in-person” nature, was titled ‘Metropolitan Dialogue of Barcelona. Innovation through co-creation: beyond the city limits’ and would last from 3:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Lorén chose to attend, according to the official justification provided, due to the fact that Zaragoza was going to organize this year’s CIDEU congress, a meeting that took place this past summer. “The objective is to build collectively, among people from cities around the world, an innovative methodology for the involvement of diverse actors in the actions of a metropolitan-scale strategic plan,” explained the CIDEU in its invitation. However, Lorén was hardly able to “build” anything, given that he did not participate.
The number two of the popular government team took the AVE outbound for Saturday at 5:46 p.m., arriving at 7:15 p.m. He spent two nights at the Sixties Hotel – on Las Ramblas in Barcelona, next to the port and half an hour from where Monday’s meeting was being held – and returned on the train that left Sants at 5:00 p.m. The bills for the AVE (68.05 euros) and accommodation (332.26 euros) totaled 400.41 euros, which Lorén passed to the City Council a few days later.
When asked by this newspaper, municipal sources allege that the Minister of the Presidency traveled two days before the day to meet with “a person in charge, a general director” of the Port of Barcelona, in relation to the Zaragoza Maritime Terminal (TMZ), an entity in which the port organization of the city of Barcelona participates.
The same sources avoid specifying who it is, while at the Port of Barcelona they confirm that, in any case, the meeting did not take place with its then general director – and currently president – José Alberto Carbonell.
Regarding his work on Sunday, the City Council indicates that Lorén’s aspiration was for Rosa Arlene María, executive director of CIDEU, to meet face to face with Antonio Pelegrín, an advisor hired at that time by the Zaragoza City Council despite residing in Barcelona, according to him he himself confirmed to this newspaper.
Lorén even sent a message to the executive director on Saturday, according to the municipal justification, but she responded that she was “very busy.” Consistory sources allege that the Presidency advisor and the City Council advisor – dismissed from his temporary position a month ago – went in person to the CIDEU headquarters on Sunday, but “it was closed.”
When consulted by this newspaper, Rosa A. María claims to “remember” Antonio Pelegrín, but due to the time that has passed, she cannot “confirm with certainty” if she met him that Monday, November 6, or if she had done so previously. It was in fact Pelegrín who represented the Zaragoza City Council at the CIDEU conference.
In this organization they assure that “there were no” preparatory meetings during the weekend in relation to Monday’s session, reports Arturo Puente.
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