Collboni will face a vote of confidence after another budget defeat

Barcelona"Three attempts, zero agreements." With this epitaph, Gemma Tarafa, spokesperson for Barcelona en Comú in the City Council, announced her group's abstention in the vote on the Catalan capital's 2026 budget. This stance has meant that, for the third year in a row, Mayor Jaume Collboni has failed to pass the budget with the support of the full council. This time, he will get it approved through a vote of confidence, which he has secured due to the inability of the other groups to form an alternative majority. However, barring any surprises—the final year of a term, with parties already focused on the election campaign, makes it more difficult to forge broad agreements—Collboni is on track to become the first mayor who fails to secure a majority. Once the defeat was confirmed, Collboni announced that he will sign the decree to submit to a vote of confidence, which will be debated next week. Unless there is an unexpected turn of events, the mayor will also lose that vote. A one-month period will then begin, during which, if the opposition groups have not reached an agreement to launch a motion of no confidence with an alternative candidate, the budget will be automatically approved. This will repeat the procedure by which Collboni managed to pass the 2024 budget. "Indeed, Barcelona will have the budget it needs and one of the best in its history," Collboni concluded.

This time, however, an agreement was closer than in previous years. This is demonstrated by the fact that the Comuns opted for abstention rather than a vote against. Tarafa criticized Collboni's "haste" and reproached him for choosing to bring the budget to the plenary session immediately when he could have waited and allowed more time for negotiations. "When a negotiation is progressing, there's no point in stopping it," he opined, emphasizing that during Ada Colau's last term, the budgets that were approved were always put to a vote in the December plenary session. The Deputy Mayor for Economy, Jordi Valls, responded that "it's pointless to prolong the negotiations when there are aspects where agreement is impossible," but announced that he would incorporate some points discussed during negotiations with Comuns into the budget. Among the areas of agreement, for example, is the increase in municipal investment in the right of first refusal and redemption, allocating 100 million euros over the course of the term. The municipal government will also strengthen the Social Services for the Homeless in Public Spaces team by adding 12 new professionals to the support services in the districts. Furthermore, 500 new places will be created to improve socio-educational support during weekends and August for children and young people aged 5 to 17 living in emergency temporary accommodation.

Ultimately, however, disagreements on issues that Comuns considered "crucial" carried more weight, such as the PSC's refusal to stop investing resources in tourism promotion or to create a low-threshold center in every district to assist the homeless. The executive also rejected Comuns' demand to immediately prohibit speculative property purchases in the city, emphasizing the need to first ensure the effectiveness of existing regulations. For this reason, the government had brought the creation of a study commission to the plenary session, but ultimately withdrew it from the agenda due to a lack of guaranteed support.

There was also no agreement on the green corridors, which Barcelona en Comú was demanding be extended to streets like Creu Coberta and Passeig Maragall. According to Tarafa, the municipal government had agreed to complete the section of Consell de Cent that has yet to be finished – between Passeig de Sant Joan and Glòries. However, Valls has tempered this commitment, noting that there are 16 lawsuits against the green corridors and stressing the need to act with "legal soundness." With this scenario, the PSC ended up only securing the support of ERC. Days ago, they reached an agreement with the Republicans that includes increasing the housing budget to €240 million and creating a €10 million tourism recovery fund to offset the impact of tourism on neighborhoods with the greatest tourist pressure. This agreement was championed by ERC councilor Jordi Castellana, who, despite the accord, lamented the groups' inability to form a majority to approve the budget.

Curiously, despite the disagreement between the PSC and Barcelona en Comú, Junts, the PP, and Vox all justified their vote against Jaume Collboni's budget because, in the words of the Junts leader in the city council, Jordi Martí, "it represents exactly the same model that Ada Colau defended."

A gesture towards Junts regarding the coexistence ordinance

Despite Friday's defeat, the municipal government sought to interpret the situation positively, emphasizing that the talks demonstrated the possibility of reaching agreements with the various groups. In this regard, Valls thanked ERC for their vote in favor and highlighted the agreements reached so far with Barcelona en Comú on issues such as regulating seasonal rentals, reducing the number of port terminals, and revising the Vallcarca urban development plan. He expressed confidence that this understanding could be replicated throughout his term. Valls also extended an olive branch to Junts per Barcelona. While admitting that reaching an agreement on tax matters would be difficult, he stressed that they could agree on issues such as the coexistence ordinance. In this respect, during the plenary session, the PSC and Junts agreed on a proposal from Junts members urging the Spanish State and the Catalan Government to "review current regulations to allow for the inclusion of relevant information in residency reports." Including "both positive contributions to community relations and any history of uncivil behavior" in the corresponding residency reports was one of the conditions Jordi Martí Galbis set for the PSC in October in exchange for their vote in favor of the coexistence ordinance, in the next major vote that Collboni will have to face after losing the previous one.