"To un-brother oneself from Tel-Aviv is the biggest foolishness in history"

Xavier Trias is direct. He doesn't use subordinate clauses or get lost in excessively long answers. He has that tranquility that age provides. While we do the photo shoot, he says the campaign is going by very fast for him. We have a coffee at the Hotel ME Barcelona and, before starting, he blurts out: "people want change".

--- What is Xavier Trias' model for Barcelona?

--- Xavier Trias' Barcelona involves a model that clearly bets on a city that grows economically and fights against poverty to generate well-being.

--- What does this mean?

--- Economic activity means industry, it means commerce, it means tourism, it means new technologies and it means services. Services, which are often forgotten, are a very important piece in our economy: schools, universities, research and innovation. And our model wants a Barcelona convinced that it is the capital of Catalunya. And this means collaborating with all the towns and cities of Catalunya. We have an obligation to be the spearhead for Catalunya to do well. And a last point. There is another important thing that is an obsession of our entire group: to promote collaboration with entities belonging to the third sector.

"We have an obligation to be the spearhead for Catalunya to do well"

--- The third sector must professionalize. It cannot live off subsidies. It must seek a stable way of relating to the public administration, as the service they provide us is very important. But we must have a stable relationship through agreements or program contracts. And we must be able to respond to the basic needs we have, because if you don't manage it well, people lose their self-esteem and become very critical of the city.

--- Does Barcelona's citizenry have a negative perception of the city?

--- Yes, because the mayor does not lead or leads in a different way, against the current. When one encloses oneself and is not in contact with people, one believes things that are not true. One believes, for example, that the city is clean, that the city is safe, or the concept of mobility is lost.

--- Has ideology been made of small things?

--- We have made ideology of senseless things. I'll give you an example: when Seat, at the Automobile Show, announces that it will manufacture 500,000 units of a new electric car, at a relatively affordable price, and names it after a neighborhood in the city, the mayor must be in the front row. And she wasn't. For an ideological reason: because the mayor turns out to be against cars and against what she calls the powerful.

"The mayor is against cars and against those she calls powerful"

--- It's just that it doesn't build superblocks. The mayor has done something that is neither superblocks nor in tune with her ideology. She has decided to make pedestrian streets to calm traffic and what she has achieved is to have first-class streets and second-class streets. In addition, she has canceled almost all the chamfers of the Pla Cerdà and is making loading and unloading have to be done in the middle of the street. With what she is doing, she does not reduce traffic and, furthermore, causes cars to go around more, so they spend more gasoline.

--- If you are mayor, are the superblocks over?

--- No, because there are no superblocks. They haven't been made. The biggest superblock we have is Gràcia. An intention of a certain superilla, but which is not a real superblock, is the one that has been made in Sant Antoni. It is an area like the one we made in El Born. The concept of a superblock is more complex. However, superblocks should not respond to an ideological approach. They have to be made to make people's lives easier, not to make their lives difficult.

"Superblocks should not respond to an ideological approach. They have to be made to make people's lives easier"

--- We have many. Finish the Carretera de les Aigües, which is a cornice that no other city in the world has. The second challenge, linked to this one, is to bring Collserola down to the city and, for that, we need to cover the Ronda de Dalt. This must be done, in parallel, with the transformation of the entire Besòs area to connect it with the city: from La Sagrera to Estació de França, passing through Glòries. And there is another important thing: the transformation of the Marina del Prat Vermell, in the Zona Franca. 11,000 homes are being built there and that area cannot remain a dead end. We have to depress, lower the level, the Ronda Litoral and, above it, build a promenade that connects the Zona Franca with Colón.

"We have to depress, lower the level, the Ronda Litoral and, above it, build a promenade that connects the Zona Franca with Colón"

--- If we lower the level of the Ronda Litoral, we will be giving much more importance to Montjuïc, since the entire Morrot becomes an area where offices and hotels can be located. This must go in parallel with having a good connection of the mountain with public transport. We must believe in Montjuïc.

--- Do we have to believe more in Montjuïc?

--- Yes. We must be aware that there is no city in the world that has the Romanesque art that we have in the MNAC. We have the Miró Foundation which is extraordinary. And the Montjuïc Castle must be given content. Montjuïc offers a lot and, for that reason, it is important that we believe it is the mountain of culture and sport.

--- Montjuïc is also a tourist attraction point. From Fira Barcelona to the MNAC, passing through all the concerts of international artists. Does tourism have a limit in Barcelona?

--- Our bet is not to keep multiplying the number of tourists who come to the city. We must seek the quality of tourists.

--- And what is this quality tourism?

--- It is family tourism, cultural tourism, and congress tourism. People who are against tourists are wrong. If we want to have research centers and we want to be world leaders, we must have intercontinental flights. And to have intercontinental flights there is something basic: to have cruises. Things do not happen by chance. Everything is a strategy.

"People who are against tourists are wrong"

--- It is very important. And we want it. The America's Cup is a good example. With the America's Cup, people are confused. They think that the America's Cup is just a boat race for super-rich people. And, in part, it's true. But the America's Cup is also a cutting-edge technology race. If you take the America's Cup and combine it with the Mobile and the Smart City Expo, you can present yourself to the world and make yourself known. You can attract investments, create new opportunities, and boost the economy.

"The America's Cup is also a cutting-edge technology race"

--- An airport that has intercontinental flights, yes. But also an airport managed from Barcelona, that is not managed by a gentleman from Aena from Madrid with many interests placed in the Madrid airport and very few in Barcelona's.

--- To attract talent and investments, apart from infrastructure, many people also demand that bureaucracy be reduced.

--- We have a problem: we must be able to streamline licenses. Many things have been judicialized, have gone through the criminal route, which generates a situation of slowdown in public administration. Officials fear losing, which causes many processes to slow down. And some have made a decision: instead of going through the administrative route, relatively slow, they go through the criminal route, which theoretically is faster. And this is a disaster.

--- Can this situation be resolved from the City Council?

--- It must be changed. We must be able to accelerate administration. Losing time is losing competitiveness. Now, it is true that there is a lot of trickery. We will let things happen, but when someone does not comply, we will be relentless.

"We must be able to accelerate administration. Losing time is losing competitiveness."

--- Barcelona with some businesses, probably, will never be kind. If we have a taxi system, which is a public concession, the logical thing is for the City Council to defend its taxis. Nobody disputes that we have a public system for Healthcare or Markets, right? Which does not mean that it is not compatible with also having a private system. But if you have a system that is a concession from the administration, then the administration must help and collaborate with the concession it has made.

"Barcelona with some businesses, probably, will never be kind"

--- Yes. The Hermitage, in any case, is now a very complicated issue. What we would not have done is beat around the bush until creating a situation that made the Hermitage impossible. We promoted a change in the land classification. Changing it from commercial to cultural, which was the most difficult thing to do. And then, well, look, it was a private business. The City Council did not put a penny into the project. The risk was all theirs, not ours. The biggest risk we could have had is that, due to poor private management, they would have left us a beautiful building in the city.

"With Madrid we must collaborate, but we must follow our own path"

--- With Madrid we must collaborate, but we must follow our own path. We cannot be obsessed with a city that is the capital of a state and that, furthermore, has the strength of Castilian. However, we must not fight with Madrid either: we have to collaborate. We are not Madrid. We are something that no one else can be. We are the capital of Catalonia, we are the capital of Catalan identity. And we have a strength that Madrid will never have: we are the capital of the Mediterranean. There is only one city that can compete with us in this field: Tel-Aviv. To un-sister from Tel-Aviv is the biggest foolishness in history. Tel-Aviv has known how to foster research, universities and high-tech centers. And for this reason it has become a reference city in new technologies, universities, research and innovation.

--- To conclude: if you are mayor, what will be the first decision you will make?

--- The first will be to appoint a manager to clarify the economic situation of the City Council. And, in parallel, to visit the Arrels Foundation to make it clear that we will pay special attention to people who are in the worst situation.

--- Tell me something positive about Ada Colau.

--- Sant Jordi's Day this year.

--- About Jaume Collboni?

--- It's Collboni's, but, in general, the socialists': the municipal libraries.

--- And about Ernest Maragall?

--- I collaborated with him to create the Barcelona Charter. And he is a person who knows how to collaborate.