The candidate of the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) for the mayoralty of Barcelona, Ernest Maragall, has asserted his options of winning the 2023 municipal elections, but he also warned of the danger that the day after the elections there could be a "conjuring trick" like the one that took place in 2019, when, despite the ERC election night victory, the votes for Manuel Valls served to return Ada Colau to the mayoral office for a second term. This time, says Maragall, the roles could be changed, alerting that the candidates of Trias for Barcelona, Xavier Trias, and the PSC, Jaume Collboni, could make use of the support of "the new Manuel Valls, Daniel Sirera", referring to the head of the PP list.
This is a scenario that the Republican candidate set out in the third ElNacional.cat face-to-face this Tuesday, introduced by the director and editor of the digital newspaper, José Antich, and moderated and presented by the group's audiovisual director, Jofre Llombart, with Maragall warning that he sees the chance of a pact between Junts and PSC with the support of the PP from the Spanish rightist party's candidate Daniel Sirera: "This is the real danger", he said, pointing out that "if there is no progressive government with ERC, we could find the Trojan horse of the PP playing a role in the governance of Barcelona". This was one of the axes of a colloquium in which the ERC candidate postulated himself as the winner and bringer of change in Barcelona: "I'm coming to replace Colau".
The Esquerra candidate went through some of the key points of his candidacy, defending that ERC has a "proposal with clear perspective and definition compared to other candidates" and assuring that the four years of this mandate "have not been wasted, they have been a time of work, listening and learning", to conclude that ERC is now "in a better condition" than in 2019. Of course, he did not shy away from noting that the current municipal government "was the result of a conspiracy" and was heavily critical of Barcelona en Comú and the PSC: "It has not been a coalition, what they have done is divide the positions and the money, and create a parallel government".
Finish the tramway, review the superblocks
Regarding specific measures in his government programme regarding ongoing construction work, such as the connection of the Avinguda Diagonal tram and the pedestrianizing of the so-called superblocks, the ERC candidate showed himself in favour of finishing the tramway link, but, at the same time, "making sure and making decisions so that Diagonal remains a reference point and commerce doesn't suffer." "We are talking about a 700 million euro investment", he recalled, ruling out abandoning the connection in the section whose construction is still pending, between Plaça Verdaguer and Francesc Macià, adding, in addition, that the investment is not only from the city council, but also from the Generalitat of Catalonia.
With regard to the superblocks, Maragall wanted to avoid focusing on the "Green Axes" of the Eixample district, the pedestrianization project currently under construction, to propose that it is necessary to "change the subject of the debate" and instead consider "how we are acting in the city as a whole". Of course, he recalled that currently in Barcelona "forty percent of space is reserved for pedestrians and sixty percent for vehicles and we have to reverse that". "Our commitment will be to reverse it gradually". However, he also indicated that the transformation of Carrer Consell de Cent - with the exclusion of cars - entails a "parallel reality" to that of Carrer Valencia alongside - which will be left with the traffic - and for this reason he argued that the future green axes "will have to be reviewed one by one".
With less than 72 hours to go until the start of the electoral campaign for the May 28th vote, Ernest Maragall highlighted that the problems that will be caused by the conversion to the Green Axis are already noticeable in Carrer Consell de Cent itself, asserting that "there are already neighbours who have had to start moving out" and warned of the problems of gentrification brought about by the pacification of streets: "There are already residents and businesses that cannot sustain this change", he insisted, adding that these changes are "a decision by the city council leadership", which, if he has the opportunity to lead it in the next term, will need to be reviewed from top to bottom.
Likewise, Maragall also defended a different policy regarding tourist apartments, noting that, right now, Ada Colau has decided to ask for legislative changes to revoke licenses. "She's saying that now, after eight years?" exclaimed the Republican candidate, pointing out that in cases like that of Carrer Tarragona, where an investment fund that owns a huge housing block has been given the green light not to renew rental contracts for current residents and instead dedicate them to luxury or tourist flats, he pointed out that "the first responsibility for this lies with the City Council, which has not used the instruments to prevent it", adding, in addition, that ex-mayor Trias also has part of the blame, since he allowed the situation of tourist apartments to "get out of control during his mandate".
Below, the entire ElNacional.cat face-to-face session with Ernest Maragall (in Catalan):