xavier garcia albiol

The candidate for the conservative People's Party (PP) in the upcoming Catalan elections, Xavier García Albiol, presented on Tuesday a proposal to reform the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) Law and make sure that its rulings are adhered to by civil servants and politicians. García Albiol admitted that the plan is especially designed to stop Catalan President Artur Mas’ push for independence, which unionists say is unconstitutional. “It’s a clear message to those who want to break Catalonia away from the rest of Spain: the joke is over”, he warned. The reform will be passed urgently by the Spanish Parliament this month, and will set in place the mechanisms and resources needed to take action against those who don’t obey the Constitutional Court’s decisions. Civil servants or politicians that ignore rulings may face fines or even suspension from office. The Catalan Government spokeswoman described the TC’s reform plan as a decision taken because of the election on the 27^th of September, and regretted that it only adds more “repression, threats and fear” to the political debate.

The conservative People's Party – which runs the Spanish Government – has chosen Xavier García Albiol, whose statements have been called xenophobic by many, to top its candidature for the next Catalan Parliament elections and run for President of the Catalan Government. García Albiol, who was Mayor of Badalona between 2011 and 2015, will replace the leader of the PP's Catalan branch, Alícia Sánchez-Camacho, who is currently involved in a dirty political espionage case. A few weeks ago it was said that the PP would stick with Sánchez-Camacho to run in the next Catalan Elections, scheduled for 27 September and likely to be transformed into a 'de facto' plebiscite on independence from Spain. However, after the rest of the main parties chose new faces to top their candidatures, the PP is doing the same and has picked García Albiol, who lost Badalona's mayoral office in May, despite being the most voted candidate, as he was unable to achieve an absolute majority.

Catalonia has a long history with immigration, welcoming foreigners from all over the world has left it with a cosmopolitan and multicultural nature. In more recent years, immigration has been well-documented by the Catalan Government and official statistics, which show various patterns. The first wave of people arriving in Catalonia, especially in the industrial capital of Barcelona, were domestic immigrants from within Spain, while later many came from South America and Northern Africa. The recent economic crisis caused a lull in these figures, but the number of foreign nationals from Asia and Europe (especially Italy and the UK) has increased over more recent years. Conscious of the need for sustainable co-living, Catalonia taken pains to accommodate its diverse population and the ACN spoke to several people about their experience moving to Barcelona.

Xavier García Albiol, the Mayor of Badalona – Catalonia’s third largest city and attached to Barcelona – will go on trial accused of the felonies of provocation of hate, discrimination and violence as well as of collective provocative slander. In 2010, before the last municipal elections, García Albiol distributed leaflets that allegedly related Romanian immigrants to crime. During the electoral campaign, he mostly focused his speech on fighting crime and stopping “illegal immigration”. The campaign created a huge controversy in Catalonia and García Albiol was the most voted-for candidate, although with far from an absolute majority. He became the Mayor of Badalona and for the first time ever the People’s Party obtained the mayorship of one of Catalonia’s top 20 most populated cities.