In the Albéniz de Montjuïc palace, property of Barcelona City Council and official residence of the Kings of Spain during their visits to the city, yesterday an image was seen that had not been seen for 17 years. The Monarch received the maximum representation of the Catalan capital. It was a 75-minute meeting, which, according to municipal sources, took place in a "cordial tone" that marks the "recovery of institutional normalcy". The meeting between Felipe VI and Jaume Collboni was part of the King's busy schedule during his visit to Barcelona, where he traveled to preside over the La Vanguardia awards ceremony.
The socialist mayor presented the King with two books. One is the special edition of Mortadel·lo and Filemó's comic book dedicated to the Barcelona '92 Olympic Games, lent for the occasion by Remedios Solera, widow of cartoonist Francisco Ibánez. The other work is the book of photographs Barcelona, co-edited by the City Council and La Fàbrica, a visual journey through the history of the city since the 19th century through the images captured by prestigious photographers and anonymous Barcelona residents.
The last private audience between a king of Spain and a mayor of Barcelona was in 2006. The then mayor of the city, Jordi Hereu, a socialist like the current mayor, had an interview with Juan Carlos I, but that time the meeting took place in the palace of the Zarzuela in Madrid. Hereu's successors as mayor of Barcelona, the convergent Xavier Trias and the leader of the commons, Ada Colau, broke with tradition. The bad relationship between the two institutions was particularly evident during Colau's eight years at the head of the City Council, in which anti-monarchist gestures abounded, from the name change of some squares and streets in the city to the removal of the bust of Joan Charles I from the plenary hall - which became of Carles Pi i Sunyer instead of the Queen Regent - passing through the plantings of the then mayoress at the Kings on occasions such as the inaugurations of major events held in Barcelona, like the Mobile World Congress.
Before receiving the mayor of Barcelona, Felipe VI met with the director of the New Zealand team and organizer of the 37th edition of the America's Cup, Grant Dalton, and the vice-president of the America's Cup Event, Aurora Catà , who went up to the Albéniz palace with a replica of the Hundred Guineas Cup that will be contested a year from now in the waters of Barcelona.
Seat's executive committee, headed by its president, Wayne Griffiths, was also present in his meeting with the King, who conveyed to the head of state the evolution of the Future: Fast Forward project, with which it is planned that mobilize 10,000 million euros in investments in Spain. In a statement, the Royal House reported that the representatives of the car brand had exposed to the King "the need to speed up the infrastructure of charging points, a taxation that contributes to renewing the vehicle fleet or the competitive advantage that the renewable energies can mean for Spanish industry".
Already in the afternoon it was the audience's turn for the Spanish teams that participated in the World Swimming Championships held in Fukuoka.
