Ada Colau is left alone in the initiative to break relations with Israel

Ada Colau's party, BComú, has been left alone in the initiative to suspend relations with Israel and Tel Aviv.

The Barcelona City Council Presidency Commission voted this Wednesday against the citizens' initiative that called for suspending relations with Israel and concluding the friendship and cooperation agreement signed in 1998 between the Catalan capital and Gaza and Tel Aviv.

Last week Colau signed a decree temporarily suspending relations with Israel.

The position of the first mayor was criticized even by her PSC government partners.

This Wednesday a popular initiative was debated in the presidential commission that also demanded the suspension of the relationship with Israel.

ERC has abstained and PSC, Junts, Ciudadanos, PP and Valents have voted against and only Bcomú has voted in favor.

The initiative had 4,000 individual signatures and the support of a hundred entities.

Despite not being approved and not having the majority of the plenary session, the mayoral decree signed by Colau is still in force.

In addition, the popular initiative will be voted on again in the next ordinary plenary session, so the commission has only served to criticize the position of BComú regarding Israel.

All municipal groups have criticized the fact that there was no prior debate before the signing of the decree.

It will not be the last time this suspension is discussed.

Junts, CS, PP and Valents have urged the calling of an extraordinary plenary session so that "urgently and immediately, the municipal government re-establish relations with the state of Israel and the twinning of Barcelona with the cities of Tel Aviv and Gaza" .

Colau now has to convene an extraordinary plenary session of the municipal council within 15 days.

During the commission this Wednesday, the pro-Palestinian doctor and historian Salah Jamal warned that the twinning between Barcelona and Tel Aviv has served to "whitewash" the alleged lack of democracy in the Israeli capital.

Jordi Coronas, from ERC, has abstained, arguing that despite supporting the Palestinian cause, they are not in favor of suspending twinnings that are a "tool" to advance the dialogue processes.

For his part, Jordi Martí, from Junts, has accused Colau's party of being “anti-Semitic” and has criticized the fact that the city's Jewish communities have not been consulted.

The councilor for Paco Sierra, from Ciudadanos, has described BComú's attitude as a "lack of respect for a democracy such as Israel".

Colau's government partners have also been critical.

The third deputy mayor of the PSC, Laia Bonet, has denounced the “unilateral” decision and has assured that with this type of mayoral decree, a disservice is done to the international image of Barcelona, ​​which the socialist councils are trying to project.

For its part, the PP had presented a proposal in which it urged Colau to strengthen institutional collaboration between Tel Aviv and Barcelona.

The proposal called for a greater relationship of business collaboration, tourism and the defense of LGTBI rights between both cities.

They have voted in favor of the PSC, Junts, C's, Valents and the PP and against BComú and ERC.

In practice there have been 20 votes in favor of yes (Collboni no longer belongs to the plenary session and has not been replaced, so his vote does not count) and 20 in favor of yes.

The tiebreaker has been broken by the group of the mayor who has a casting vote, so the PP proposal has not been approved.

On the other hand, the Presidency Commission of the Barcelona City Council has approved this Wednesday, with the support of all the groups except JxCat and ERC, a proposal from the PSC, amended at the request of BComú, to reject the pro-independence cuts on Avenida Meridiana .

The PSC of Barcelona has presented the proposal to the commission after the ANC and Meridiana Resisteix decided to block this avenue in Barcelona again on February 10 and 11.

The final text calls for "rejecting the cuts in Meridiana called by entities such as the ANC and Meridiana Resisteix with the support of former president Carles Puigdemont, which alter coexistence and seriously affect commercial activity and mobility in the affected neighborhoods in the whole of the city".

The proposal urges the entities, political parties and people with institutional responsibilities to condemn these cuts, "with the aim of restoring the normality altered during the long months in which these unfortunate events have occurred."

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