RAÚL MONTILLA, IÑAKI PARDO TORREGROSA – 07/02/2020
Barcelona will be again, because it already was in the mandate of Mayor Jordi Hereu and the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, cultural and scientific cocapital of Spain. This was agreed and signed on Friday by President Pedro Sánchez and Mayor Ada Colau after a one-hour working meeting at the Consistory.
The Chief Executive and the mayor have also committed themselves in a solemn act in the Saló de Cent to convene the “administrative collaboration commission” to address pending investments and other shared projects. In addition, they have put on the table more specifically the support of the Central Government to UNESCO’s proposal to the Global Universities Network for Innovation so that, in 2021, Barcelona will be the host city (it would be the first time it is celebrated one of these characteristics outside of Paris).
More than 20 million euros per year
“Let’s talk about co-leadership. Spain needs more growth engines if we want to fly higher. And that role must be played by a city like Barcelona, ”said President Sánchez, who recalled that the agreement on cultural and scientific capital of Barcelona ceased to be applied during the mandates of the PP.
“Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia and it is essential that institutional normality be restored,” said Colau. The agreement would involve an annual investment of over 20 million euros. In fact, the last contribution, from 2010, was 25.8 million euros.
Rental Regulation: Sánchez commits “to comply with the agreement”
In her speech, Mayor Colau has not failed to make reference to the need for the central government to act on the regulation of rents, a possibility that was already introduced in the 2019 budget agreement and which is also contemplated in the agreement of government of PSOE and Unidos Podemos.
The mayor has assured that in the coming months there will be a first draft of the legislative project and that there is a “commitment to implement it as soon as possible”.
For his part, Sánchez has not avoided this issue that, in recent weeks, has generated some controversy in the socialist ranks. The president of the central government has pledged “to comply with the agreement.” “Rent cannot be an insurmountable barrier for citizens,” he insisted.
Precisely, at the working meeting, Colau has offered the president a book of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Barcelonas, and another on affordable housing in Barcelona in the 2015-2018 period that she prologues herself.
Sánchez in conciliatory tone with Torra and mayor Colau offers “collaboration”
In his speech, Sánchez has pledged that yesterday’s meeting with President Quim Torra does not stay “in theory” and has ensured that the commitments “with facts” will be verified. After qualifying the last ten years of “collective failure” and a phase of which “no one can feel proud”, the chief executive has asked to put a “point aside to that political moment and open a new one”. We are going to see “how can we give a positive response or an alternative” to the requests of the presidents of the Generalitat of these last ten years, he said.
Colau, meanwhile, has offered the “collaboration” of the city of Barcelona. “Yesterday was a turning point in tone and content. A new stage of constructive dialogue and respect is opened,” said the leader of the commons, who has advocated that the new period be “of propositional relationships and empathy ”.
Add comment