"Maximum consensus" of all the actors involved. That is the recipe of Xavier Trias, Junts per Catalunya candidate for mayor of Barcelona, to expand the El Prat airport. In his intervention in the cycle of conferences organized by the Cercle d'Economia on the occasion of the municipal elections on May 28. It so happens that Trias has been a member of the entity for years, a fact that both he and the president of the Cercle, Jaume Guardiola, have highlighted.
Thus, the former mayor of the Catalan capital has advocated providing El Prat airport with greater capacity and that intercontinental flights do not have to go through Madrid. "It cannot be that 70% of the Japanese who come to Barcelona have to go through Madrid", he stressed.
For this, the post-convergent leader has called for changes in the governance of the infrastructure as well as its expansion. "We have to seek the maximum consensus", highlighted Trias, who has criticized Maurici Lucena, president of Aena, for the formula proposed for this in the summer of 2021: extending a runway without first having negotiated with all the actors involved. "It cannot be that the complicity of all these people is not sought, that is unpresentable", he stressed in reference to Lucena's lack of agreement with the mayor of El Prat de Llobregat and other institutions involved in the expansion of the airport.
During his appearance, the JxCat candidate also lamented that Barcelona does not have the help of the State and that he has stressed that it is "a city that has struggled". In addition, to guarantee social progress and fight poverty, the former mayor has opted for the creation of "sustainable economic activity" and facilitate private initiative and public-private collaboration. In his view, that requires "new leadership" like the ones he has said his candidacy can provide. "The city needs change and to recover the illusion", he underlined.
In matters of mobility, one of the issues that Trias uses to charge against the current mayoress, Ada Colau, the candidate for Junts, has referred to the new bike lane on Via Augusta, which has caused queues and delays. "It is a gift that Mrs. Colau gives me," Trias said, confident of capitalizing on the discontent of the residents of that district. He has also bet that the scooters and bicycles of the delivery people have the obligation to have insurance in case of incidents.
To questions from the entity's partners – who have been allowed to correct when they asked him their questions on more than one occasion – Trias has considered that "all those who financed" Manuel Valles four years ago, among whom he has recognized that there are friends of his, they are "most responsible" for Colau having a second mandate. "He is a man who has fooled us," Trias asserted about Valls, just before reiterating that he is the only candidate who agrees not to agree with the current mayoress.
In another order of things, Trias celebrated the words of Jaume Collboni, socialist candidate, in an act at the Círculo Ecuestre, in which he promised to make the list with the most votes mayor. "If Collboni says that, I believe it and congratulate him. He will fill me with satisfaction that he supports me," he pointed out. "In life, anything can happen [in relation to not voting for him if he is the most voted], but if he says that he will do that, I will not be the one to say that he will not do it," he has settled.
In the second row, among those attending his conference, was the former president of the Generalitat, Jordi Pujol, who already beat Trias in the presentation of his candidacy last February 6. Among the audience, in addition to Guardiola, were also the former presidents of the entity Pedro Fontana, Joan Mas Cantí – one of the founders of Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya in 1974–, Salvador Alemany and Javier Faus.
