The Republican Elisenda Alamany confirmed yesterday that the negotiations with the Socialists regarding a government pact at Barcelona City Council have been intensifying for days. La Vanguardia advanced, in its edition yesterday, how the departure of Ernest Maragall at the end of the year did nothing other than activate some contacts that until then were not being made in any way. The truth is that Maragall was always very reluctant to be part of a new tripartite government with PSC and BComú.
In any case, the new president of the municipal group of ERC also hinted yesterday that it is still too early to predict how these talks will end and also let slip that the socialists should be more discreet and, above all, not speak for others . In any case, the current scenario is very different from what had been seen until Christmas.
This summer, Ernest Maragall had negotiations with Xavier Trias to form a government well underway and he did not like the way in which the socialist Jaume Collboni wrested the mayorship from the winner of the last municipal elections. In the first steps of the mandate, the leader of the Republicans made it clear that he was ready to exercise a very tough opposition. The relief by Alamany after the last plenary session of last year did not reduce ERC's pressure on the Collboni government, but it did activate some hitherto unpublished contacts.
Alamany detailed yesterday that these talks are mainly dealing with the city model and the concerns of Barcelona residents. "And we also talk about an issue that worries us a lot. We want Barcelona to play the role of the capital of Catalonia". They have not yet addressed the City Council's budgets nor any division of responsibilities.
Given the circumstances, Mayor Collboni's disposition announced this week to establish the figure of night mayor and hand over this position to the political forces with which the new municipal government agrees seems now more than ever to be a gesture of complicity with the republicans The figure of the mayor by night was one of ERC's star proposals in the 2023 and 2019 electoral campaigns.
This new scenario gives Mayor Collboni oxygen. In reality, the socialist always wanted to govern only with ten councilors and agree on some issues with some, and others with others. But both Junts and BComú are fully determined to assume responsibilities, to embody their electoral programs in the action of the City Council in a forceful way.
At the moment, Collboni maintains a much smoother relationship with Xavier Trias than with Ada Colau, especially in the personal sphere. But the winner of the last elections will leave the municipal political life in a few months, and the socialist is afraid that then the tougher and especially pro-independence branch of Junts will prevail in the end and from the municipal government put him in more than 'a commitment
The relations between Collboni and Colau have done nothing but become rarer since the socialist left the government team to focus on a very long electoral campaign. In addition, the rebuke of the municipal government promoted by Colau in the last plenum still belongs to the socialists. But at the moment the former mayor's main goal is to set up a left-wing tripartite government. The trains to Madrid have already left. Besides, he has no other way to protect his legacy.
