The mayor of Pineda de Mar (Maresme), Xavier Amor, chaired the meeting of mayors of 10 municipalities of Alt Maresme and La Selva with the purpose of sharing the concern in relation to municipal finances and the current economic imbalance suffered by municipalities such as consequence of inflation and price increases in the last two years. The conclusion is that they will be forced to increase taxes next 2024.
“This is a widespread problem,” says Amor, which is exacerbated by “the debt that the Generalitat still maintains” with the city councils and the fact that municipal institutions “are forced to assume costs for services that do not correspond to them” such as for example daycares.
With the serious economic crisis of 2008, the effects of which lasted until the end of 2017, and then the Covid crisis that occurred in 2019, many city councils tried to maintain a tax freeze, as in the case of Pineda since 2016, so as not to tax citizens more and minimize the impact of the crisis.
Inflation and the high prices of supplies such as gas or electricity since 2022 have caused a significant imbalance in the budgets of local councils that forces them, in view of 2024, to seek budgetary balance by carrying out “a acceptable increase” in local taxes, which in many cases has yet to be determined.
The meeting that brought together the mayors and mayoresses of Lloret de Mar, Tordera, Malgrat de Mar, Palafolls, Santa Susanna, Pineda de Mar, Calella, Sant Pol, Canet de Mar and Arenys de Mar, also served to claim an improvement in funding local, long claimed by the town councils since more than 30 years.
The meeting also served to share other problems regarding municipal services, especially citizen security and mobility. It is not acceptable to the mayors of the northern area of Barcelona that sometimes “there is only one police patrol for the entire district” which is why they demand an increase in the number of Catalan police officers. The Alt Maresme and the Selva, in winter, have a stable population of 200,000 inhabitants but, from Easter until the month of October, it doubles to 500,000 inhabitants.
From the first meeting of mayors of Alt Mares and La Selva, the will also emerged to continue holding periodic meetings to debate and seek solutions to the common problems of the municipalities.
