In a new example of the importance that Alberto Núñez Feijóo attaches to the municipal elections in Barcelona, the president of the Xunta, Alfonso Rueda, traveled to the Catalan capital today to support the popular candidate for mayor, Daniel Sirera, a bet personal of the president of the PP, who needs to improve the results in Catalonia to pave his way to Moncloa.
Rueda, Feijóo's right-hand man, who succeeded him as head of the Xunta a year ago, and Sirera have visited the Galician Center on La Rambla, where the popular mayor has highlighted the contribution of Galician emigrants, currently around 70,000 in Barcelona, to the Catalan progress.
"We are two peoples with a very powerful identity", highlighted Rueda, for whom the characteristics of Galicians and Catalans are "perfectly complementary" and are summarized in the seny and the common sense, of both. "It is about not dividing, about integrating. You can build the society in which you live without forgetting your roots and without having to choose between one side or the other," said the president of the Xunta in reference to the tensions experienced during the independence process in Catalonia.
For his part, Sirera regretted that in recent years, due, from his point of view, "to the procés and the troubles that have occurred in Catalonia", a large number of Galician companies have made the return journey and have returned to Galicia and has vindicated the management of the PP at the head of the Xunta, of which Feijóo was president for four legislatures and whose "good politics" continues, in the opinion of the PP candidate for mayor of Barcelona, in the hands of Rueda, who places the "problem resolution" of citizens ahead of "ideology".
"We want for Barcelona the same thing that the Galician PP is doing, which is to govern for all, without sectarianism, thinking of the benefit of all citizens," said Sirera, who aspires to double the results of the PP on the next 28 May and obtain at least four councilors in the City Council of the Catalan capital.
"The time has come for those who intend to put Barcelona City Council at the service of Pedro Sánchez, like the Socialist Party, or Carles Puigdemont, like Xavier Trias, know that the Popular Party is here, which will put it at the service of all the Barcelonans", has proclaimed Sirera, who has based his pre-campaign on ruling out any possibility of agreeing with the commons of Ada Colau and the republicans of Ernest Maragall, leaving the door open to a pact with the PSC or Junts.
In this sense, the popular mayor has charged against the "degrowth" proposed by Barcelona en Comú and has reiterated his commitment to tourism as one of the economic engines of the city. "The commons are against progress," said Sirera, for whom Barcelona "needs" tourists, because the sector concentrates 15% of its gross domestic product (GDP). "Red carpet and music band, cruise tourists are just as tourists as the rest and even if they spend a few hours in the city they leave money in it," concluded the PP candidate, who also calls for expanding the El Prat airport.
"We will end the moratorium on opening hotels," Sirera reiterated, proposing to extend tourist attractions throughout the city "like an oil stain" so that they are not concentrated in certain areas. "The citizens of Barcelona have to know that quality tourism is good for us and a lot," said the mayor of the PP, who has recognized that "massification is not liked by everyone", although he has accused Colau of not having managed the phenomenon well: "Blaming tourists for Barcelona's problems is a mistake".
Regarding the deficient service of Rodalies, whose situation has been aggravated by repeated breakdowns, Sirera has urged the Government to invest in the railway network of Catalonia and to "take seriously" the issue and has rejected that the transfer of powers is the solution, since, in his opinion, "everything that the Generalitat touches stops working".
