Collboni will give up on modifying the 30% this term if he does not reach an agreement soon.

BarcelonaEither box or belt. Jaume Collboni's government added pressure this Wednesday to the negotiations with Junts (Junts) to modify the 30% reserve for social housing. In an interview with SER Catalunya, the Deputy Mayor for Economy and Housing, Jordi Valls, warned that if an agreement to modify the rule is not reached before the summer, it will not be touched again until the next term. The ultimatum is intended to unblock an agreement that seemed a done deal, but is now up in the air.

"We will not have an endless debate; we have been discussing the 30% for two years, and I think we have debated enough," said Valls, who warned Junts that, "if there is no agreement before August 1," the municipal government will close the file and will not decide whether to reopen it until after the municipal elections. For the moment, the Junts per Barcelona group has not responded to the fourth deputy mayor's warning.

Valls' words come at a time of stagnation in the talks between Junts and the PSC. Pending some details, both groups were quite in agreement with the latest 30% reform proposal that Collboni had put forward and which, as the ARA advanced, dilutes the impact of the measure on large-scale renovations. Negotiations revolved primarily around taxation and Junts' request for a 4% reduction in the property tax paid by Barcelona residents.

However, in recent days, an external factor has also impacted the negotiations. Junts sources admit that everything happening in Madrid—with corruption cases affecting the closest bone of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez—makes closing a deal with the Socialists more difficult: "It makes it more expensive to have a photo taken with the PSC." These doubts have not pleased Collboni's executive, who believes that the 30% should remain outside the noise that may arise in Congress.

That's why Valls's words on Tuesday are being read as a way of adding public pressure to the Junts per Barcelona group, which, like the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), has insistently defended the need to modify the 30% reserve promoted in 2018 by Ada Colau's government. This change in the regulations has also been insistently requested by the employers' association—led by Foment—and by the real estate sector, which has even helped facilitate talks between the two groups at City Hall.

A difficult Wednesday

Valls's words also come on a Wednesday that is expected to be difficult for Jaume Collboni's government. The Economy Committee is due to vote on a credit modification that, for now, does not have guaranteed support. On Monday, the leader of Barcelona en Común, Janet Sanz, warned that her group would not support this modification if Collboni did not commit to "reversing the dismantling of the 30%." The Común party's decision left the ball in Junts por Barcelona's court.

But several sources admitted on Tuesday that they saw it as unlikely that Jordi Martí Galbis's group would support the credit modification, which aims to mobilize €100 million from the City Council's budget to cover public transport expenses for the Metropolitan Transport Authority (€50.1 million compared to €7.7 million for the Municipal Institute of Social Services) and personnel expenses for the City Council and its dependent entities (€36.3 million).

Valls already considered the Commons' position "incoherent" on Monday and recalled that the agreement reached with them for the 2025 tax ordinances included a demand to freeze public transport fares. "It's hard to believe that they want to jeopardize public transport discounts, which affect hundreds of thousands of workers and citizens, the needs of the most vulnerable people served by social services, and the salary increases agreed upon by the general table of the State civil service," said Valls.