One of the most controversial decisions taken by the last mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, was the breaking off of the twin city relationship with the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, a move that did not have the support of any municipal party except her own Barcelona en Comú. In fact, the initiative was rejected on several occasions and if it was approved and remains in force it is only because, in the absence of consensus, Colau chose to go ahead with the measure via mayoral decree. With the change at city hall last Saturday, however, the re-establishment of relations may take place in a matter of days, because the Catalan Socialists (PSC) were also opposed to breaking off relations.
In any case, the mayor of Tel Aviv, Ron Huldai, has already made the formal request to restore relations, via a letter addressed to the new mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, in which, as well as congratulating him on his new position, expressly requests that he restore the twinning agreement between the two cities, as well as encouraging him to “deepen and strengthen” the ties between them, after they were damaged by Colau's decision to break off the arrangement. Huldai also took the opportunity to invite Collboni to visit Tel Aviv and showed his willingness to "help, advise and exchange ideas" that will improve the lives of the citizens of the two cities.
Colau announced, on February 8th this year, the city's temporary suspension of all relations with the state of Israel, including the twinning agreement with the city of Tel Aviv, in a decision taken by mayoral decree and accompanied by a letter to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, informing him of the decision. According to the letter that Colau addressed to Netanyahu, several international entities such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Israeli association B'Tselem had "denounced that the practices of the state of Israel against the Palestinian population may constitute crimes against humanity, of apartheid and persecution”. Likewise, she recalled that the Parliament of Catalonia had passed a resolution that classified "the practices of the Israeli occupation as 'equivalent to apartheid'". For this reason, Colau affirmed that she could not remain "impassive in the face of the systematic violation of the basic rights of the Palestinian population", because it would be "a serious mistake to apply a policy of unequal treatment and close our eyes to a violation that has been widely verified and documented by international organizations for decades".
According to a study prepared by the Simbiu consultancy on the online impact of the breakup of the relationship, mayor Colau suffered a significant drop in popularity as a result.