1.- We all know that Barcelona is a great city, but very few can accurately set its population or limits. We can talk about Barcelona as a municipality or as metropolis. The two are true. The two are different.
2.- As a Barcelona municipality, it has just over 100 Kim2 and just over 1,600,000 inhabitants and is governed by a municipal corporation that is chosen by the election system for closed lists and according to rule D ’Hondt.
3.- The municipal government election system does not seem to arouse much interest among Barcelona since it has only voted in the last elections (2019) 66%. That allows the current mayor to govern with only 20’7% of the votes and the support of the PSC that added 18’4%
4.- Thus conceived, Barcelona would be one of the 500 cities with more than 1 million inhabitants, but it would lack an entity to compete with the macrociudes network that make up the global world, is that real Barcelona?
5.- The truth is that in addition to the Barcelona municipality, there is another Barcelona, the Metropolitan Barcelona with an extension of 600 km2 and a population of 3.2 million inhabitants. When we talk about Barcelona, we almost always refer to that Barcelona that, of course, does not deny the first, but enhances it.
6.- That Metropolitan Barcelona is formed by 36 municipalities and has its own administration that was initially called the Metropolitan Corporation of Barcelona until its dissolution in 1987 and that, after its restoration in 2010, has become called Metropolitan Area of Barcelona.
7.- Very few inhabitants of that Metropolitan Barcelona are able to draw their territorial limit or point out what are the competences of the Metropolitan Administration. In 1986, shortly before its dissolution only 6% of the population knew the WBC.
8.- The situation has not changed after the restoration of the AMB according to a study of the UB carried out between 2013 and 2016. The AMB remains the “unknown administration”.
9.- However, the same study shows that, when the functions that develop the AMB and the services it provide in waters, waste or transportation, the valuation that the citizen gives is very high, reaching a 7, 4 out of 10.
10.- Interestingly, the less known administration turns out to be, when it is explained what it does, the best valued. Is there a reason for this paradox?
11.- Without a doubt the answer is yes. There is a double reason. The system of choice of your governing bodies explains your ignorance. Its high technical level explains its high assessment.
12.- The maximum government body of the AMB is the Metropolitan Council currently composed of a total of 80 members, of which 36 are the mayors of the municipalities that constitute their territory, and the rest are indirectly chosen by municipal corporations. The Metropolitan Council elected by this indirect route designates its president who, until now, has always been the mayor of Barcelona.
13.- The indirect election makes it impossible for the inhabitants of Metropolis Barcelona to know their metropolitan counselors and that few know who presides over the AMB. Other systems are, however, possible and are used in European metropolitan cities. They could also put into effect among us.
14.- Reconfigure our Metropolitan Administration could be done by recovering the Consell de Cent as direction organ at the metropolitan level. In this way, an organ that was rector of Barcelona would have a presence at the time when it opened to the Mediterranean and began a period of economic and social growth.
15.- Keeping the mayors of the 36 municipalities that form the territory of the AMB as born members of the Consell de Cent would be to choose another 64 counselors.
They could be chosen by a direct choice system. One for every 50 thousand inhabitants and, to achieve greater proximity between voters and elected, the election could be made by districts by choosing your representative directly.
16.- Naturally, for this they should determine the area of each electoral district without the need to follow the boundaries of the municipal terms, based on the “Metropolitan neighborhoods” where possible and grouping municipalities where this is essential to reach 50 thousand voters .
17.- Choosing your representative directly allows you to address a specific person when you need it and not an anonymous administration or a political party that is, in reality, who designates metropolitan counselors with the current system.
18.- This system of direct choice of the Metropolitan Council, with the electoral system that BDF proposes or with a different one, is remarkably extended throughout Europe using multiple denominations as appropriate to the political culture of each country.
19.- The Metropolitan Councils of Direct Choice are found in the three cities, “Landers” in German terminology, which are Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen, but also in Vienna, since Austria is also a federal republic.
The cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sevastopol are also federal entities.
20.- However, these direct election tips are not present only in countries with federal structure. Metropolitan regions are also regulated in France (Lyon and Aix-Marsella), in Italy (Palermo, among others) and in Portugal (Lisbon and Porto).
They are also London and Liverpool metropolitan entities according to the special English and Brussels regulation between Flanders and Valonia.
