The Mayor of Barcelona, Joan Clos, proposed yesterday that there be a ‘social consensus to allow the design of a new framework for people to live together’ in a city that has ‘a serious problem’. Clos, in an extraordinary session of the city council debating ‘public-spiritedness’ admitted errors and said that ‘it is not possible to accept what has happened these past days in Barcelona.’ He affirmed that it was necessary to recuperate those values that have fallen into disuse, because the future could bring ‘problems of xenophobia’.

The opposition parties in the council, the CiU and the PP, pointed the finger of blame at the Mayor for the various violent events which occurred during the summer months, because, they said, ‘he did not exercise his authority’. In Barcelona there is a sense of ‘permissiveness and impunity with regard to acts of incivility’, said the CiU leader in the Ayuntamiento, Xavier Trias. ‘The city is no longer in the hands of the government’, he added.

Alberto Fernández Díaz, PP city council group leader was no less critical: ‘What has happened would not have occurred without your permissive nature’. Both the PP and the CiU agreed that the local Guàrdia Urbana should play a vital role in the fight against uncivil and disrespectful acts. Clos replied by saying that he was disposed to revising the number of agents available for such tasks.

Clos also thought that it would be an error to apply a hard hand and accused the opposition parties of painting a catastrophic panorama.

The Mayor also announced a €9 million investment, until the end of this year, for those areas which are used significantly by tourists, an increase in social services, cleaning reinforcements and a strengthening of the Guàrdia Urbana. Clos also considered that the Catalan police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, also had an important part to play in applying the law and in the city council’s fight against antisocial behaviour.

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