With the coalition government facing its second term in Madrid, no one is aware that Comuns Sumar and the PSC are two natural allies in the face of the post-electoral pacts after the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia on May 12. They also govern together in several institutions such as various city councils in the metropolitan area of Barcelona but no longer in the Catalan capital. However, infrastructure policy pits the two parties against each other. This Tuesday, the candidate of the commons, Jéssica Albiach, urged the PSC to “stop being to the right of Pedro Sánchez” in this area so “from here on we can understand each other.”
From Santa Perpètua de Mogoda, Albiach has shown his rejection of the so-called fourth belt, a project devised decades ago that improves road connections in the Vallès area, currently only developed in portions. He has also recalled the refusal of his people to the expansion of the El Prat airport, a proposal promoted by Aena and the Ministry of Transport in the hands of the PSOE and shared by the PSC in Catalonia. He has disgraced the fact that the PSC candidate, Salvador Illa, defended these ideas in the first debate of the pre-campaign, organized this Monday by Pimec.
The candidate has urged the socialists to put aside these ideas that, according to her criteria, are “right-wing.” “We defend pacts with progressive parties to make progressive policies,” stressed the candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat. “Sometimes the socialists end up dragging their feet and doing what we propose,” Albiach defended, using as an example the labor reform and the increase in the interprofessional minimum wage.
“We have never been in favor of the fourth belt because it carves up the territory and destroys natural spaces,” said Albiach, before meeting with a platform opposed to its construction. The alternative of the commons is to advance in the creation of an orbital railway infrastructure that "breaks with the radial vision that everything has to pass through Barcelona." This line already has parts executed and others in the “study phase” but for Albiach “it must be executed now.” To this end, he has proposed shifting the investment destined for the hypothetical expansion of the airport to the improvement of Rodalies, currently with several important works underway and with problems in the service.
