Large demonstration, with thousands of people, this Sunday in Barcelona against the expansion of the El Prat airport and to demand a more sustainable economic model. But with less assistance than was expected a few weeks ago, before the central government announced that it had halted Aena's expansion and investment project of 1.7 billion euros for five years. Before the break, the call pushed the political parties to speak out and the Government even announced the presence of an ERC advisor. In Barcelona, Mayor Ada Colau led the campaign against enlargement, despite the fact that there are ministers from her party in the Spanish Government. Finally, the political presence has been low profile, with deputies and councilors, but without councilors or the mayor.Colau even invited the Vice President of the Government Yolanda Díaz to visit La Ricarda, the lagoon of great environmental value that would be affected by the expansion.
The organizers, the ZeroPort and Network for Climate Justice platforms, have brought together 300 entities from all over Catalonia: historic environmental and environmental associations; groups opposed to projects in Girona, Tarragona or the Pyrenees; the Unió de Pagesos union; or neighborhood platforms contrary to mass tourism. The motto of the protest was
Extensions, no. Fighting for the climate, health and life
. The protest was called long before the suspension of the expansion was decided, but it was maintained to make clear the opposition of these entities to any other project of growth of an airport or transport infrastructures and to the economic model based on intensive growth. The project promoted by Aena involved the 500-meter extension of the runway parallel to the sea and a new terminal.
The protest, held on Calle Tarragona in Barcelona, has brought together environmental organizations, social movements, neighborhoods and platforms opposed to all kinds of new infrastructures in Catalonia.
The Urban Guard has calculated an attendance of 10,000 people, a figure that the organization raises to 90,000.
In addition to the environmentalist discourse, the protest has had a marked anti-capitalist character and a reproach to politicians.
During the parliaments, from the stage, the philosopher Marina Garcés has affirmed: “They say that we are those of no.
And ours is not a "enough" because we have ideas, desire and bad temper to say enough of kidding us in the name of the common interest, enough of capitalism dressed in green ", he said and celebrated that" politicians are not here ”.
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In the demonstration Jessica Albiach, the leader of the commons in the Parliament, in addition to defending the "no" to enlargement as opposed to the "yes to life, health and sustainable mobility", has asked the central government -with whom they are in league - make it "coherent": "You cannot pass a law against climate change and defend Aena's aspirations," he said and asked for the transfers of the port and airports because "it is a matter of sovereignty that the Catalans and the Catalans have to decide ”.
On the part of ERC, Raül Romeva has criticized the “blackmail” that the central government intended, in his opinion: “It is unacceptable because the impositions are not acceptable.
You have to have a model agreed with the territory and the Spanish government has been unable to reach a consensus on a proposal and there ERC will have us in front of you ”.
When asked about the absence in the concentration of counselors from his formation, Romeva has argued that there was a broad representation of mayors of the territories and deputies.
The deputy of the CUP, Eulàlia Reguant, who has left the column that started from El Prat towards the concentration, has warned of the risk that the expansion project will resurface: “Until it is clear that it is completely abandoned, we must keep mobilized ”.
A protester in the center of Barcelona, this Sunday.
Massimiliano Minocri / THE COUNTRY
At noon, thousands of people were already occupying the road that connects the Plaza de Espanya with the Barcelona Sants Station in a static concentration organized in three blocks. After a banner against the expansion of the airport, Anna Moreno, 64, a neighbor of the Barcelona district of Ciutat Vella, one of the most affected by gentrification, denounced that “in addition to the environmental problem that the airport project entails, it will mean more tourism ”. “And we already have enough problems due to tourism. This will cause the price of housing to rise, the expulsion of neighbors, the disappearance of local businesses from the overcrowding of public spaces ”, he lamented.
Also the couple Eduard Grau and Mónica Sagol, 46 and 48 years old, lined up Tarragona street at one o'clock in the afternoon raising banners where they rejected the celebration of the Winter Olympic Games in Catalonia and questioned the authorities' commitment to the agenda 2030. “The expansion of the airport means more gentrification and the situation in Barcelona is unsustainable. It is nonsense ”, protested Grau. The current stoppage of the project, Sagol added, is not a guarantee of anything either: “We don't trust ourselves. You have to keep protesting ”.
The concentration has gathered protesters from the metropolitan area and also from other Catalan provinces. A column with thousands of people walking towards Barcelona was already cutting off Baix Llobregat's access to the Catalan capital at mid-morning and the tractors of farmers from El Prat, Viladecans and other municipalities in the southern metropolitan area crossed, after one in the afternoon , the Plaza de Espanya to join the protest. Josep Casasandreu, 37, a resident of El Prat, parked his tractor at the foot of the old Las Arenas bullring: level, we will go behind. It will be the destruction of the Delta del Llobregat ”, he warned.
From the Costa Brava, Jordi Cruz, 57, a member of SOS Costa Brava, also warned of the collateral damage of the project also outside Barcelona: “The problem is the model, which makes no sense.
The project implies more tourism in a crowded capital and also more tourism that would come to the Costa Brava.
Bringing in more people doesn't make sense ”.
Protesters in the center of Barcelona.Massimiliano Minocri / EL PAÍS
The protest manifesto denounces the climate impact that El Prat would have to expand; the one that would have on the Delta del Llobregat, with areas of high environmental value and agricultural land; the impact on the surrounding population (in pollution and noise), and the "worsening of an unfair, speculative and crisis economic model". For all these reasons, it demands the paralysis of airport infrastructures, "an AENA resizing plan", the execution of the pending compensations set by the last expansion of El Prat, investing in the Llobregat Agrarian Park and "policies to urgently transform the current economic model ”.