Create economic activity, quality jobs, so that Barcelona regains self-esteem and its citizens, the illusion. This is, in short, the recipe of Junts' candidate for mayor of the Catalan capital, Xavier Trias, who took part yesterday in the cycle of lunches-colloquium with the leaders of the list in the municipal elections organized by the Círculo Ecuestre.
Trias moved like a skilled tightrope walker in front of an audience that may share the vast majority of his economic proposals and in core matters of the next elections, such as security and housing, but that may also criticize his positioning for what about the process In this sense, to the question of whether he is an independentist, the ex-mayor who aspires to regain municipal power in two months, and eight years after handing over the reins to Ada Colau, answered without hesitation with a yes, even though he hinted that he does not foresee the independence of Catalonia in the near future. He also added that his goal as mayor will be to "work to have as little dependence as possible", both on the State and the Generalitat.
Trias again showed the personal stamp he wants to put on his candidacy, which the PDeCat hopes to attract in the coming days, and insisted that he is not a candidate under the orders of the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont, whose he assured that he has given him a very blank check and that he has only asked him for one thing, that he win the elections.
The Junts in Barcelona candidate has been able to avoid issues that affect his party, such as the Laura Borràs trial, from harming his aspirations for the time being. Yesterday he said that the president of the pro-independence party, whom he recognized as "a great personality", "explosive", should reflect on whether a conviction by the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia in the case of the alleged irregularities at the head of the Institution of Catalan Letters, "whether or not it harms JxCat".
During the conversation he had with La Vanguardia journalist Joaquín Luna, Xavier Trias did not shy away from this label of candidate opposed to Ada Colau which suits both him and the mayor herself. He reiterated that if he succeeds in regaining the mayor's office, he will roll back some of the policies promoted by the leader of the commons: the obligation to reserve 30% of new constructions or major renovations for social housing ("well-intentioned, but a failure”); the tourist accommodation plan that prevents five-star hotels from being built in a wide area of the city or the tramway connection along Diagonal, which he has stated he would not complete in the section from Verdaguer to Francesc Macià. If Trias becomes mayor again, he assured, Barcelona would not again commit the "nonsense" of giving up a cultural project like the Hermitage on Port grounds.
The main message that Trias wanted to convey is that the next mayor of Barcelona must combat the discouragement and loss of self-esteem of the citizens. That is why he insisted that it is necessary to generate economic activity and well-paid jobs so that Barcelona is not "a low-cost city". "The mayor of Barcelona - he affirmed - must take his suitcase and go around the world to promote the city, attract investment and, at the same time, help local entrepreneurs to sell their products". And to reinforce his speech he added that "fighting poverty is not about handing out subsidies to the poor, which is sometimes necessary, but about creating economic activity".
