The Sant Cugat del Vallès City Council will tighten registration procedures, requiring in-person registration and implementing more administrative controls and police inspections. The municipal government approved a new directive which, as explained this Tuesday by the town's mayor, Josep Maria Vallès, and deputy mayor, Jordi Puigneró, aims to ensure the census "reflects the reality" of the municipality and prevents "fraud." From now on, applicants for registration over the age of 16 will have to complete the process in person, and third-party authorization documents will no longer be valid. This does not mean that digital procedures will be eliminated, but in these cases, registration will not be immediate, as it is necessary to verify residency. In a press conference, Puigneró insisted that with the new instruction—endorsed by the legal services—the city council is "complying with the state law" that regulates the municipal register, and assured that "people who live in the municipality will be registered, not the State." He indicated that Sant Cugat's intention is to "lead the change" so that municipalities comply with the law. In this regard, both councilors indicated that the City Council is simply reinforcing all controls to prevent a recurrence of the situation. Of the 4,000 relevant registrations, some were cancelled. It is impossible to know how many of these are due to legal fraud, people claiming to reside in the municipality without actually doing so, or "administrative negligence" or "oversight" in not processing the cancellation upon moving to a different location, according to Puigneró. This suggests an attempt to deceive the administration when, for example, there are continuous "registrations and cancellations" of residents at an address, or when an "overcrowding" is detected in a dwelling exceeding the number of people indicated on the occupancy certificate.

The PSC, Comuns, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, and the CUP signed an agreement this Wednesday in which they commit to guaranteeing universal registration in compliance with the law. Pact for the Register in Catalonia It is an initiative promoted by more than a hundred social entities, from Cáritas, ECAS, LaFede to Confavc and aFFaC, which requires the registration of all residents without asking about their administrative status, whether they have a rental contract or not or if they live in substandard housing. On the other hand, the PP, Vox, Aliança Catalunya and also TogetherThe council members have justified their refusal by stating that the agreement does not resolve "in-depth issues fundamental to the management of the registry that is consistent with the tools and resources the country currently has." It so happens that yes, it has been added to the MEScat Pact, a party born from a split from the PSC and integrated into Junts as an internal current.

Barcelona has reached its highest population ever in the last forty years: 1,732,066 inhabitants. The Catalan capital has been experiencing unstoppable demographic growth driven by immigration for some time now, but its census picture hides profound transformations. The city is increasingly aging and suffering a worrying loss of its child population. Two indicators highlight this change. On the one hand, the increase in residents between 25 and 44 years old leaving Barcelona, ​​who now account for half of the total number of emigrants. On the other hand, the percentage of children under 16 residing there has fallen to a historic low (11.9%). In other words, the Catalan capital has consolidated a pattern of emigration driven by young people and families with young children, who are moving abroad, primarily due to difficulties in accessing housing.

Rosa RR has been living in an apartment in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Martorell for over three years, but the City Council is preventing her from registering because she has no property title or rental agreement. She has requested entry to the register up to six times and has not received a response in each case, although the law interprets this silence as positive after the required three months have passed. However, she is still not registered.

The oversight of the census has become one of the main armed forces of the city councils that advocate a tougher and more radical approach against immigration. Ripoll is a paradigmatic example, under the far-right government of Silvia Orriols, which has promoted very strict measures to restrict access to registration for newly arrived residents, accusing them of fraudulently seeking to access basic services. But this is not the only case on the agenda. In 2024, this City Council deregistered up to 804 people. deregistration This was carried out through an intensive control campaign by the city council's "verification agents," conducting door-to-door visits to check the addresses of all those who, according to the municipal government, showed signs of fraud. This massive operation to remove people from the census, although presented by the council as a very positive initiative to regulate the residence and access to services of all city residents, has generated much criticism among the third sector.

The postal vote has achieved in these elections record participation figures and has increased by 350% largely due to the pandemic. The vast majority of voters who requested it have been able to vote by mail. This is not the case, however, of Sílvia Barceló, a Barcelona resident who was not allowed to do so this Sunday. Barceló requested the vote by mail last February 2nd but the documentation never arrived to its destination. "I didn't receive any notification or anything", she explains in conversation with ARA.