What only three months ago seemed impossible is now on the table in Barcelona: it is the possibility of Junts entering the minority government of the socialist mayor, Jaume Collboni. An alliance that would add an absolute majority and that on June 17 would have sounded like martian, because in the last minute of the investiture session Collboni snatched the mayor’s office from the winner of the elections, Xavier Trias, thanks to the support of the commons of Ada Colau and the PP. “Entering just to enter makes no sense, if it means entering to govern the city well, we cannot refuse in any way. It remains to be seen whether Collboni loves us or not, I have indications that he likes Mrs. Colau. I guess we will meet and see,” she said this Monday. In an interview in BE Catalunya. A few words that have as a backdrop that Junts holds the key to an eventual Pedro Sánchez Government.
With a secondary role in Congress until before the summer, the party led by Carles Puigdemont saw the weight of its seven seats revalued on 23-J. The leading role of Junts has generated a domino effect that encompasses Barcelona City Council, where, in addition, some business sectors would applaud the alliance, more towards the center than Colau’s policies. When the parties are asked, the official version is usually that Barcelona is a separate, watertight folder, and outside of other negotiations. Sources around Collboni do not value Trias’ words. But reality has shown on several occasions clashes between two and three institutions to approve, for example, budgets: the latest from the City Council, the Generalitat and the Government, between commons, ERC and socialists.
And while Trias is willing to agree on a government or the 2024 budget with Collboni, the commoners are playing all or nothing. Last week they pressured Collboni, ensuring that either the pact includes the accounts and entry into the municipal executive, or there is no agreement. Colau remembers from the day after the elections that a tripartite between them, the PSC and ERC totals 24 councilors, a comfortable majority in the plenary session of Barcelona. Both Colau and Trias are former mayors, both assured that they would leave after the elections if they did not win, but three months later the two continue to lead their respective municipal groups. And with the same argument: leave everything arranged before leaving.
Trias’ words in recent days and especially during the aforementioned interview are very clear. If on Friday he said that he was willing to talk to Collboni but that he did not call him, this Monday he revealed that he has already called him: “So we can see each other.” And he even suggested the possibility of including ERC in the equation, with whom he had agreed on a government program in the council before Collboni took away his chair: “It is he who has to decide why he opts, it must be done with a program. I signed more than 100 points with ERC, if you read it and agree, we can collaborate.”
In any case, Trias assured that whatever happens, whether there is an agreement or if he remains in the opposition, he will leave City Hall. “I already said that either I was mayor or I was going home. “I will neither act as an altar boy nor as the head of the opposition,” he said and opted for Jordi Martí Galbis to take over from him. Martí Galbis is a faithful collaborator of the former mayor since the time Trias was a deputy in Congress. One of the reasons that Trias gives among his collaborators for extending his presence in the council is that he is excited to officiate the wedding ceremony of his number 2, whose wedding is scheduled for next October. Trias does assure that he will not eat next Christmas’ nougat as a councilor in the City Council.
Trias boasts of going it alone, in the final stretch of his political career. This Monday he stated that the socialist party provoked the coup d’état of February 23 with the aim of stopping the autonomous development of Spain, in the midst of a democratic transition. “No one can believe that this was a coup d’état by Mr. Tejero; Maybe there are still some innocent people who believe it,” said the leader of Junts in Barcelona. “They’re going to tell me that I’m gagá, that I’m old, but it’s obvious,” he said.
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