Collboni will make changes to the government to complete his term alone.

BarcelonaJaume Collboni is left without stable partners on the horizon. In a meeting this Saturday with the leader of the ERC party at City Hall, Elisenda Alamany, the mayor of Barcelona confirmed that he will have to govern alone until the end of his term. A scenario he has been anticipating for weeks and is already working to find ways to give new impetus to his executive, which has only 10 councilors.

According to several sources told ARA, Collboni's plans involve a modification of the municipal portfolio to shore up the government's structure. Although the mayor is still outlining the scope of a reshuffle that he is designing with secrecy, the appointment of several new commissioners to strengthen the executive is on the table. There are currently nine.

Despite the limited room for change given by having only 10 councilors, as explained by Tot Barcelona, Collboni is also considering making some changes to the leadership of the districts. Here, all eyes have turned to David Escudé, the only councilor who represents two districts and who was censured by the full council of Les Corts, but municipal sources also point to the possibility of a replacement in Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, where, according to the same sources, Maria Eugenia Gay "is not working."

Despite being one of the notable signings on Collboni's list in 2023—she was number two—the former Spanish government delegate in Catalonia doesn't have an easy path at City Hall. Nor does it have an easy path in the second deputy mayor's office for Social Rights, where she hasn't connected with the sector and has shifted much of the responsibility onto the Commissioner for Social Action, Sonia Fuertes.

Hence, municipal sources do not rule out the possibility that, in this quest to boost the government, Gay—who is also vice president of the Barcelona Provincial Council—could lose influence in the government. This influence, however, could be assumed by figures that the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) would like to strengthen, such as councilors Raquel Gil and Marta Villanueva.

Collboni will travel to Brussels this week, where he is leading the fight by major European capitals to get EU funding involved in the housing crisis. There, he will finalize some changes that he could announce early next week, a time when the mayor wants to hold an event to take stock of these first two years in office.

The relationship with the ERC

With Saturday's meeting between Collboni and Alamany, one of the key events of the Catalan capital's mandate comes to an end. Almost a year ago, the two reached a preliminary agreement to govern together, which ended in frustration due to the strong divisions this debate generated among the Republican base. The meeting certified the amicable divorce of a marriage that never came to fruition.

The victory of the critics at the ERC federation's congress in Barcelona was the final blow to a pact that had already been eroded by the passage of time. Even among those who a year ago were in favor of entering the Catalan capital's government, there were doubts about the wisdom of maintaining that agreement with the midpoint of the mandate just around the corner and, therefore, with little room to imprint the Republican seal on the executive.

By publicly burying that preliminary agreement, Alamany is also trying to definitively defuse the internal debate within the Republicans. This Thursday, in fact, the party's new leadership in the Catalan capital also took a step in that direction with a letter to the membership signed by Cruz Camacho and Miquel Colomé. This letter shelved the consultation on whether or not to join the government and instead advocated opening a collective process of reflection to define "the path to the municipal elections of 2020."

In addition to calming the internal noise, Alamany thus avoids a consultation that, had it obtained a result against entering the government, could condition the Republicans' strategy in Barcelona in the next term. Despite not joining the executive, this Saturday's meeting does not slam the door on the agreements between ERC and PSC in the City Council.

In fact, the meeting also yielded three working spaces between both parties in which the municipal government must provide feedback on the fulfillment of agreements reached in areas such as language—with the creation of a Catalan audiovisual hub on the horizon—urban transformation, and tourism. "These three spaces are three priorities for the Barcelona that ERC wants," Alamany assured reporters this Saturday after the meeting.

However, he warned that they will closely monitor compliance with the agreements and the schedule. "We will monitor what happens, and what happens as ERC wants," warned Alamany, who affirmed that they will work to ensure these projects are completed before the end of the current term.

The second part of the mandate

Collboni, therefore, is on track to complete his entire term alone despite having the government with the fewest councilors in Barcelona's history, with only 10. A minority that, for now, has not allowed him to approve any budget through ordinary channels and with which he will have to face debates such as the reform of the 30% reserve for social housing.

In these two areas, the role of Junts could be key, especially in the case of the 30%. Despite the rejection of maintaining the regulations as they currently stand, within the party led by Jordi Martí Galbis, however, there is debate about whether or not to give Collboni a boost, who until now has made the major agreements with ERC and Barcelona en Comú.