Comunes' ultimatum in Collboni: they won't agree to anything unless the Vallcarca mass eviction is stopped.

BarcelonaBarcelona en Común's ultimatum to Jaume Collboni. The group's president, Janet Sanz, has issued a "final" warning to the mayor of Barcelona: either the municipal government stops the macro eviction of Vallcarca immediately or they won't agree on anything. "We won't even talk about the credit modification, nor about the tax ordinances or the budgets, nor about urban planning," he assured.

In this equation, then, Sanz also leaves out the tram connection between Verdaguer and Francesc Macià. "We are in a context in which the housing emergency is the people's greatest concern and it is impossible for the municipal government not to assume the necessary policies to resolve it," he criticized, and clung to the results of the first barometer of 2025 to justify the change.

In this regard, Sanz criticized Collboni for acting as an "investment fund" with the Vallcarca evictions (which would affect 40 people, 13 of them children) and accuses him of a "lack of humanity": "It's public land and the decisions are up to the City Council." Furthermore, the president of Comunes in Barcelona celebrated "the failure" of Wednesday's eviction attempt after citizen opposition and compared it to the Casa Orsola case earlier this year.

Sanz also lamented that Collboni's government has opted to carry out the evictions without negotiating with residents to try to find alternatives. She emphasized that it is still unknown what the land where the blocks of flats to be evicted are located will be used for. "We'll probably have a lot for many years to come where no work will be done, in exchange for leaving forty people homeless," he said.

Waiting for a "change of attitude"

The Speaker of the Commons has described her request as a "turning point" to maintain dialogue with the Socialists on other issues affecting the city, and has distanced herself from the City Council's recent actions in Vallcarca: "We will not be complicit in these evictions." Hence, Sanz assures that the next session (which is expected to be the last) of the non-permanent commission for the study of housing problems in Barcelona –the working group launched by the Commons in November 2024 to analyze the legislation, urban planning, and investment needed to increase the public and protected housing stock–, will not be held until two conflicts of interest are resolved.

Firstly, Sanz has demanded that housing powers be returned to the deputy mayor, Laia Bonet, a power currently held by the also deputy mayor, Jordi Valls. This "change of portfolio" in the matter was the result of the municipal government reform that Collboni promoted a few weeks ago to face the second stage of his mandate. The other condition they are setting for holding the Commission's final session is that it include a space for dialogue to negotiate with the residents of Vallcarca.

The threat of a "no to everything" from the Comuneros comes at one of the most delicate moments for Collboni, right in the middle of his term. The mayor saw a few days ago how his major government gamble, the modification of the reservation of 30% of protected housing failed because Junts withdrew from the negotiating table. Also on Friday, the City Council plenary session condemned the mayor's "inability" to reach agreements and overturned the regulation that was supposed to allow the Guardia Urbana to now have 22 Taser pistols. This is by far the most well-known: its awareness rate reaches 86.4%.