1.- The municipal area of Madrid has just over 600 km2 and just over 3.2 million inhabitants. Both magnitudes coincide almost exactly with the extension and population of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, its municipal area and population are much smaller.
2.- This supposes a very different metropolitan governance system in the case of both. In Barcelona, the metropolitan reality must be managed by cooperation between municipalities in a system that is essentially federative. Madrid tried to unify its metropolitan and municipal administration.
3.- However, neither the municipality of Madrid nor the AMB include their metropolitan areas in their entirety. In Barcelona, the scope of the real Metropolis can be identified with the so-called Region I as defined by the 2010 Law of the Parliament of Catalonia. However, in 2017 Garraf and part of the Anoia region will join a new Region of Gran Penedés.
4.- In Madrid, above the municipal level there is only the CAM that brings together the powers of territorial management and those of the autonomous government.
5.- In the Barcelona Metropolis, the situation is more complex. Above the municipal level is the region, the AMB and the Provincial Council, before reaching the Generalitat as an autonomous government body.
6.- Comarca, AMB and Provincial Council are bodies of the local Administration of indirect election and with powers that are largely concurrent. Cooperation and collaboration between administrations is mandatory, but it is not always easy or effective.
7.- It is not easy to understand that in our case 3 levels of indirectly elected local administration are necessary and in Madrid none, since both the Municipality and the CAM are directly elected. The result is that we have too many administrations, little transparency and lack of clarity regarding the responsibilities of each of them.
8.- It seems more logical to simplify intermediate administrations. If there is a metropolitan management body in its territorial area, regional Councilors are not necessary and that body could easily assume their powers and also those of the Provincial Council, which could remain active beyond the metropolitan territory.
9.- A model like the one we propose would take advantage of the effectiveness derived from voluntary cooperation between local administrations, which is at the very root of the metropolitan fact, and the greater capacity for action of a simpler administration that is closer to the inhabitants of the metropolitan territory. .
10.- It is also important to consider that in this way we approach metropolitan realities configured as City States (Germany, Austria, Russia) or as Region Cities (France, Italy, Portugal), a model that is supported by a good part of the governance experts.
