La Mercè dream by Jaume Colboni

2024-09-24 12:28:18

BarcelonaJaume Colboni’s Mercè dream must be similar to this year’s. Without outstanding events and with a political perspective that has a special interest, with the socialists ruling at the same time in the State, the Generalitat and the City Council. A new panorama compiled in the image of cultural professionals who took the authorities from Mercè Basilica to Plaça Sant Jaume. The presence of Salvador Illa as President of the Generalitat is the first innovation of a process where the reference to the new political scenario that opens in the City Council is given by absences: neither Ada Colau, nor Xavier Trias, nor Ernest Maragall.

A year and a half after the municipal elections, then, Colboni noted how the other three powerful heads of the City Council would have changed. A new era opens that will have its first touch in the negotiation of financial regulations and budgets that the city government has already begun to open. This Tuesday, the leaders of the Junts, comuns, ERC and PP – Jordi Martí, Janet Sanz, Elisenda Alamany and Daniel Sirera – have begun to take positions before the dance of the accounts is definitely opened. All of them have opened the door to negotiate with the mayor.

What has not changed is the calculation, which makes the government a clear division – 10 councils out of 41 – but which makes it impossible to declare a majority choice to Colboni because of the vetoes between the Junts and the commons. The mayor, meanwhile, continues to be unable to find a stable partner to ease the loneliness of his leadership. The agreement with the ERC, on the way before the summer, will now have to wait at least until the end of the year. This was confirmed on Tuesday by the head of the Republicans in the City Council, Elisenda Alamany, who admitted that until Esquerra elects a new leader in the November assembly, no decision will be made about entering the government of Barcelona.

the commons, in fact already without a Colau who will officially say goodbye to the plenum in October, they have already given up on Colboni’s government pressure and chose to try to “lose the elitist drift” of Collboni from outside. With the main conditions for the budgets already on the table – reduce the ports, regulate the time rental and maintain the public transport fares -, a difficult negotiation can be seen. Or Junts, already without Xavier Trias, refused to drag Colboni’s government to his posts with complex commitments. And Sirera, from the PP, continues to ask the mayor to open to the right.

The political shift was also evident before the revolutionaries, during the traditional mass for Mercè. For the first time in many years, the president of the Generalitat was next to the mayor and heard himself as the Archbishop of Barcelona, ​​​​​​​​Joan Josep Omella, ordered “unity” and warned of the dangers of increasing society individuality and closure within the new knowledge system.

Despite the favorable political situation that has been drawn in front of him, Mercè has also allowed Colboni to realize that he has a job in front of him with what is one of the main problems of the city: housing. Just outside the basilica he met a group of demonstrators protesting against the future release of a block of flats in Sants. There are also some of the many tourist apartments in the Gothic quarter, and from where some visitors come out curious about the parades on the street.

No events despite the rain

Beyond the political panorama, however, the big news that Colboni took away from the creation of Mercè was that there were no incidents. After years in which news of events accumulate during public holidays in Barcelona,​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Only rain has turned a party into mud which, however, does not have to stop any work.

The Council for Culture, Xavier Marce, celebrated the absence of events and highlighted the civic commitment shown by citizens during the Festa Major. Marcé explains that although it is very difficult to put figures on the Mercè, the City Council estimates that a million people will have been spectators of the first shows – especially concerts – held these days in Barcelona.