A crucial week begins in the mandate of the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida (Madrid, 46 years old), because on Friday the new mobility ordinance is debated in an extraordinary plenary session, which must replace Central Madrid, the low-income area emissions that justice has overthrown. Four former councilors of Más Madrid, who are fighting in court to form Grupo Mixto under the name Recupera Madrid, will support the regulations in exchange for their amendments being approved. If Almeida manages to move it forward, a festival awaits him for two years of cuts of work tapes, most of them inherited from the previous team, which can pave the way for victory in 2023. "My criterion is that I will not continue beyond eight years," he points out. about his future in the Madrid City Council.
Question.
Is Recover Madrid a good campaign slogan for the next elections?
Answer.
For those who are not a good slogan, it is for the spokesperson of Más Madrid, Rita Maestre.
Q.
Will there be a plenary session for the mobility ordinance, whatever the courts say about the councilors of Recupera Madrid?
R
.
We have the intention, of course.
We continue negotiating.
With Recupera Madrid we had a meeting, they have sent us the amendments that they consider and we are studying them.
And we are meeting with the Socialist Group.
Q.
That the councilors form a Mixed Group and are not non-attached councilors, was it part of the negotiation of the ordinance?
Was it a consideration?
R.
No. In addition, there is a key element that proves it: the resolution dictated by the president of the Plenary [Borja Fanjul, PP, in which he admits that they are a Mixed Group] is prior to the ruling of Central Madrid and, therefore , prior to the need to process the sustainable mobility ordinance.
P.
"With Almeida, Madrid Central ends on May 26", said the posters of his candidacy for mayor.
And now?
Q.
I still maintain that Madrid Central is the wrong approach, because it only acts on one source of pollution, the vehicles, and only on the Centro district.
For this reason, at Madrid 360 we act on all sources of pollution and on the 21 districts of the city.
If we kept Madrid Central as the only measures to adopt, we would not comply with air quality regulations.
For this reason, I said that Madrid Central is not the solution to the problems we have.
More information
Almeida supports his new Madrid Central with four votes from the left
Rita Maestre: “We have regressed in mobility and environment policy.
What they have done is smoke "
The Ombudsman, on Central Madrid: "The new regulation supposes an environmental setback"
Q.
So why are you breaking your electoral promise?
R.
Because now there is a Climate Change law that was approved in May, which obliges every city with more than 50,000 inhabitants to have a low emissions zone before 2023. Therefore, I think it is reasonable that, since we had a low emissions zone in the downtown district, let's keep it, but combining environmental sustainability with economic sustainability.
For us that is inalienable.
Q.
What are you willing to compromise in order for the ordinance to go ahead?
R.
We are negotiating with Recupera Madrid the entry time of the motorcycles, for example.
[With Almeida's plan, motorcycles will be able to circulate from ten to eleven at night.
Recover Madrid raises the current schedule, until ten o'clock].
Q.
What if you have no backup?
R
.
All those parties that vote against will be voting for failing to comply with the Climate Change Law.
Those parties that vote against the ordinance will be voting for violating the Climate Change Law
Q.
And could all the cars circulate through the center next month.
R.
That is a question on which those who vote against will have to reflect.
P.
And the mayor has nothing to think about?
R.
Yes, that's why I put the sustainable mobility ordinance on the table.
And the difference with respect to the one who votes against is that he will be allowing any vehicle to enter the downtown district.
Q.
Let's talk now about your management with bicycles.
One in three public bicycles are broken and workers report that they are saturated with work and with fewer staff.
A.
We are aware that there is a problem.
It is not that they are broken, it is that they are vandalized, which is not the same.
Two days ago 400 bicycles were vandalized out of a total of 2,700.
What are we doing?
We have hired an additional 25 people who will try to remedy these deficiencies.
We are going to place security cameras and we are going to improve the anchoring system to prevent theft.
Q.
Do you plan to privatize the service?
A.
No.
Q.
Outside of BiciMad, doesn't the City Council have a plan to extend the use of bicycles like other European capitals?
Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida, last Friday in his office.
Bald Elm
R.
The bike is part of what is the sustainable mobility menu of this City Council.
It is approximately 1% of the trips that occur every day in the city.
For us it is an objective that the bicycle has a greater number of users.
P.
Madrid only has 43 kilometers of segregated bikes.
Valencia or Seville or Barcelona have more than 200. Is it reasonable?
A.
In Madrid, a model of use of the bicycle was chosen, which are lanes 30 and in which there was a coexistence between bicycles and cars.
I have used the bicycle a lot and I think a combination is good.
Q.
Have you ever been whistled when you cycle on those lanes?
R.
I have never felt aggressiveness.
Q.
What if you had to take the bike would you go along a 30 lane or a segregated lane?
Q.
Do you really ask?
By lane 30. For tastes, colors.
P.
But you like the bike better.
A.
I use the motorcycle, yes.
It is a high occupancy vehicle that goes at least 50%.
[Laughs].
Q.
Last year there were 211 homophobic attacks in the city, according to the LGTBI Observatory of the region.
These are worrying data that are increasing.
R.
It worries me enormously.
Madrid should be a city absolutely free of aggression.
It is also true that we did a study and more than 80% say that Madrid is a free city and in which they feel comfortable.
Q.
When Rocío Monasterio says, for example, that Pride is a “denigrating caricature” or Santiago Abascal alleges that talks on sexual diversity are closer to pedophilia… what do you think?
R.
I do not think for Abascal or Monastery.
When Javier Ortega said that he would bring Pride to Casa de Campo, I was the first to say that it didn't make any sense.
I believe that the Pride festivities are part of Madrid, where everyone can love whoever they want to love.
Of course I do not share the positions that Vox has in this regard.
Q.
Do you know how many women have been murdered by their partners in Madrid so far this year?
R.
I think three women.
P.
The budget for equality and sexist violence has only risen 0.6% after a large cut of 6% in 2020. Do you always cut where Vox asks to cut?
R
.
This Government does not act at the dictation of Vox.
This municipal government does not act at the dictation of Vox
Q.
Are you proud of the management you made of the storm Filomena?
R.
Proud, I would not say.
It was an impressive logistical challenge.
But I do believe that it was a gigantic challenge that we faced and that in two weeks the city of Madrid completely and absolutely returned to normality.
Three days after that snow fell, buses were already circulating and five days later the garbage was being collected.
P
.
The city was paralyzed for two weeks.
A.
I would not say that she was paralyzed.
It is true that there were many ailments, but in two weeks normality had returned, after having to remove an amount of snow similar to the distance between Madrid and Brussels.
Q.
Do you have contingency plans prepared for this year?
R. You
have to be prepared.
But the public services of a city cannot be dimensioned for a situation that occurs every 150 years.
Q.
What would you say to people from Madrid who think the city is dirty?
R.
That it is not clean enough and that is why we have made an extraordinary effort to obtain a new cleaning contract of 80 million euros.
Madrid is not clean enough
Q.
Do you rent or have a mortgage?
A.
I have a mortgage.
Q.
Of the 18,000 rental apartments that are now in Idealista, 700 are worth 600 euros.
Most do not reach 70 square meters.
R.
We have a housing problem, indeed.
There is a problem that is that of those people who have a salary, a job, have some type of economic capacity, however, what they do not have is the ability to access housing.
And I think we also have to ensure that this niche can be covered.
And how can we do that?
Or with the direct action of the administration or with the generation of mechanisms from the administration so that the construction of these houses can proceed.
Q.
Are you in favor of locating stressed areas to try to lower the rental price?
A.
I think that does not lead anywhere.
A greater regulation, it does not give you the solution in the rental price.
P.
How many evictions have occurred in Madrid so far this year?
R.
That data I do not have.
P
.
His government partner, Ciudadanos, is a supporter of the surrogate belly.
What do you think?
R.
We are against the regulation of surrogacy.
Q.
And what is your position on abortion?
R.
I am a firm defender, in this case, that all means must be used so that before making a decision, such as abortion and with the consequences that this entails, the woman must be given all the possibilities so that If you want to have that boy or that girl you can have it.
Q.
What if you don't want to have it?
R. I
respect the legal framework that exists in Spain, although I liked the law more than 85. [Only when it is a serious risk to the health of the woman, rape or malformation of the fetus].
If the conditions are met after the pandemic, I will submit a candidacy for the Olympic Games
Q.
Is your relationship with Deputy Mayor Begoña Villacís more like Pimpinela or like an old-fashioned marriage where the procession goes inside?
R.
It is like a marriage in which we are able to solve the dirty laundry inside the house.
P
.
And would you like to share a house with her again in the year 2023?
R
.
I would like to have a large enough house in the center right headed by me.
Q.
And for her?
A.
Led by me.
Q.
Let's talk about Covid terraces.
The deputy mayor has said that she is in favor of prolonging them in bars for two or three years.
R.
My position is clear.
You have to give priority to the neighbor and you have to give priority to the quality of life in the city of Madrid.
Q.
Nothing to talk about Villacís' position?
R.
It is not necessary to go to categorical and absolute solutions.
Q.
Are you considering making any changes to your team?
A.
No, I think there is always room for improvement, but neither in the short nor in the medium term do I have in mind to make changes in the government team.
P.
Let's talk about the PP in Madrid.
From Sol they have revealed Ayuso's intention to preside over the party in the region.
Will you support your candidacy?
R.
I am not going to talk about the subject because it does not touch and because the congress is next year.
I sincerely believe that what the people of Madrid want from the mayor is that I focus on solving their problems and not so much on internal organic issues.
Q.
And then why did you accept to be a national spokesperson for the PP?
R.
It is not the same.
We are talking about internal party issues and whether I support Ayuso or another candidate.
P
.
Does the future regional executive of the PP have to count on Almeida?
R.
The future real executive of the PP will have whoever the affiliates want.
Q.
Speak now as a spokesperson for the national PP.
What would you do to unblock the appointment of judges?
R.
Modify the election system.
Q.
And why didn't the PP do it when it had it on the electoral program in 2011 and it obtained an absolute majority?
R.
I think it is one of those issues for which we have obtained less electoral support in the following elections.
Jose Luis Martínez-Almeida, last Friday at the Palacio de Cibeles.
Bald Elm
P.
Do you think that people voted less for the PP for that?
R.
I believe that there were certain electoral commitments that we assumed, which also has a logic derived from the economic situation we were experiencing at that time, but that were not fulfilled and that I believe that perhaps they influenced the fact that our support was actually lowered. electoral.
Simplifying the Civil War in which it was only a coup, is also a mistake
Q.
When you hear that the Civil War did not come from a coup, what do you think?
R.
That the Civil War comes from a coup, but simplifying the Civil War, which was only a coup, is also a mistake.
Q.
Are you in favor of exhuming the bones of the more than 100,000 victims in the gutters?
R.
I believe that anyone who does not know where their relatives are has the right to know.
P.
Does Professor Justa Freire deserve a street in Madrid?
R
.
Possibly it deserves recognition, but the mayor of Madrid cannot breach a court ruling.
P.
But you can appeal it.
R.
I think there is some confusion.
There was only one appeal, that of cassation.
Anyone knows that it is an extraordinary resource and very difficult to admit because it has strict requirements.
Is it a political decision or is it a technical decision to appeal?
Who has to say it are the legal services and the legal services told us that there was no room for an appeal.
P.
Can you not dedicate a street?
R.
It is that there we are in another technical debate.
In other words, the road naming ordinance establishes very strict requirements so that the names of already established streets can be changed.
Q.
Two streets have been renamed during these two years.
R.
Which ones?
P.
The Saucedal square, in Tres Olivos, by Torcuato Fernández Miranda, and a street in the Barajas district by the name of a former councilman of the PP.
R.
I do not know the specific case, but if it was done, it was done according to the ordinance.
I am not opposed to Justa Freire having a street, but I hope that they are not opposed to the mayor serving his sentences either.
Q.
Do not you think that these gestures continually seek the Vox electorate?
A.
No. There are certain political forces that want to exclusively star in certain flags that correspond to the whole of society and that there are differences on certain issues does not mean that one is a denier, or a fascist, or that one is a homophobe.
Quite simply, there may be different approaches to the same issue.
I am a strong defender of feminism, understood as equality between men and women.
Now, if you tell me if I am a defender of Irene Montero's feminism, I am not.
So does that mean I'm a macho?
No. That is to say, I believe that the debates in Spain should be calmer and more reasonable than they are.
Q.
And that drive is always on the same side?
R.
No, Vox, on certain issues, is also trying to patrimonialize certain flags.
P.
By the way, will Madrid present a candidacy for the Olympic Games again?
R.
If it depends on me, it is a decision that I will make after the pandemic.
If the favorable conditions are met, I would like to present the candidacy.
Q.
You have two years left.
What do you have in mind?
R
.
We must continue to persevere in the model that has allowed Madrid to be the first autonomous community in Gross Domestic Product.
If we had to summarize, economic and social recovery, the approval of budgets, sustainable mobility ordinance and terraces ordinance and at the same time, the management and completion of the projects that we are carrying out.
P.
And what would you like to be the legacy that Almeida leaves in Madrid?
R.
That in times as difficult as those we have lived, the people of Madrid think that Almeida always did what was right, whether or not he was interested from a political point of view.
Q.
Is there a mayor that you have as a reference?
R. A mí me gustaría ser de mayor como el alcalde de Málaga, Paco de la Torre.
Jose Luis Martínez-Almeida, en las escaleras del Palacio de Cibeles. Olmo Calvo
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