The mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, will be able to approve the new civility ordinance before the end of the year with the votes of the Junts and the ERC. The text, approved in 2005 and awaiting revision for a decade, increases fines for bottles, illegal street vending, drunken roads (up to 3,000 euros) and graffiti, and requires its authors to clean up the graffiti. Politically, for the PSC municipal government, the agreement is relevant. Junts’ yes represents the first pact of the socialists with the winning party of the elections, to which they accepted the 12 allegations presented: issues such as setting a timetable for application, increasing sanctions including “uncivil recidivism” as an aggravating circumstance or the obligation to clean graffiti.
Another major reform that PSC and Junts were close to agreeing on was the relaxation of the 30% social housing requirement, suspended last summer. ERC, for its part, prides itself on preventing a shift to the right of the ordinance with social measures. The text will be voted on this Thursday in committee and finally on Friday December 19, during the last plenary session of the year.
The leader of Junts in the City Council, Jordi Martí Galbis, celebrated that “the new ordinance incorporates the DNA of Junts”, a force that “is committed to maintaining order in all its aspects” and puts an end to “ten years of leadership” (both of former mayor Ada Colau and the current one of Collboni), marked by “disruption, degradation of public space and non-compliance with the ordinance”. Martí criticized the fact that between 2023 and 2024 only 16% of fines were collected.
The contributions of neoconvergents They also include the commitment that the municipal executive asks the government to establish international cooperation mechanisms so that foreign citizens fined in the city eventually pay the fines, and that, in the future, “uncivil backgrounds” appear in reports on the roots of foreigners during the work permit process. Martí also welcomed the fact that the contributions to the ordinance “are not an isolated action by Junts.” “We are accomplishing other important things, we are helping to ensure that our multiple recidivism law will soon prosper in Congress, as well as the one that fights against the occupations.”
On behalf of ERC, councilor Jordi Coronas recalled that the ordinance “is outdated and it is not possible to guarantee its compliance” and explained the contributions of the Republicans: “Give priority to mediation in conflict situations in the public space, which has proven to be a more decisive mechanism than sanctions; that the catalog of alternative measures is expanded; and that it is clear that sanctions for incivility are dissociated from reports on the roots of migrants, because they would be discriminatory. ” Finally, Coronas highlighted that following the budget negotiations with the PSC, the budget, pending final approval, incorporates 100 new Urban Guard agents.
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