Barcelona approves limiting tourist groups to 15 amid doubts as to whether it can do so

“This has nothing to do with tourist phobia & rdquor ;, said this Friday the ERC councilor in Barcelona Miquel Puig, by presenting a proposal that called for several elements: to prepare a report on the maximum number of tourists that Barcelona can support without the number “compromising the quality of life of the city’s residents & rdquor ;; take stock of the Strategic Tourism Plan 2016-202; reactivate working groups on the spaces with the most visitors in the city, and “modify the ordinances necessary to establish a maximum of 15 people plus the guide & rdquor; for organized groups in the center of Barcelona.

It was the most striking thing in a plenary session in which all eyes were on ERC leader Ernest Maragall after this week he was forced to rectify and announce that his group “will facilitate the approval & rdquor; of the accounts, against which he had voted just five days before in the initial process. Maragall has attended the plenary session, although he has not taken the floor throughout the session.

The republican initiative has prospered with their votes and those of the government partners, Barcelona en Comú and the PSC, but It is not clear whether the limitation of visitors can materialize, because the competence debate is complex.

Tourismophobia

While various groups branded Puig a tourist phobe, the first deputy mayor, Jaume Collboni, has taken advantage of the debate to mark ground. He has asked for “a little more rigor & rdquor; to Puig, recalling that the city council asked to be able to regulate tourist groups by submitting allegations to the tourism decree of the Generalitat of August 2020 and that it rejected them, so the competition is autonomous. And he has gone further in the tourism debate and has proclaimed: “We want tourists to return. And we are against degrowth & rdquor ;.

Collboni then mentioned one of the issues that separate Barcelona en Comú and the PSC: shared homes. The mayor’s group, Ada Colau, wants to veto them, and that of Collboni, to regulate them. A difference of position that this same Friday has made them vote differently before a proposal of Eva Parera, from Barcelona for Change, that asked to approve “immediately” an ordinance on shared homes: the socialists have voted in favor and the ‘commons’ have voted against. An initiative that has been approved with the ‘no’ of BComú and ERC. That differentiated vote on the homes shared between partners had already been given in commission.

As for the maximum 15 tourists, the Socialists affirm that the city council can decide on public space, whether or not to veto the presence of groups of tourists, but not on economic activity, that is, if the group consists of 10 or not. than 15 tourists. However, ERC insists that the city council is in a position to make that decision.

Group sources allude to the decision that was taken in April 2015, when Xavier Trias, shortly before the municipal elections in which he lost the mayor’s office, signed a decree that limited the access of groups of 15 tourists to the Boqueria market on Fridays and on Saturdays from its opening until three in the afternoon.

The PSC responds that this could be done because the market is not a public space, but a municipal one. The Republicans emphasize that the one who takes the issue in the Government is the ERC Company, so it will be easy to reach an agreement on this issue. And the Socialists answer that if that is the case, honey on flakes, but they emphasize that until now the Generalitat has refused to give in.

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“La Ayuso catalana & rdquor;

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