Under the motto ‘We defend the land, we build the future’, the 1,800 participants gathered, according to figures from the Guàrdia Urbana, have charged against what they consider “a model that bets on the capitalist system and carves the social, economic and environmental future”.
Some 1,800 people, according to municipal sources, and 10,000, according to the organization, demonstrated this Saturday afternoon through the streets of Barcelona to reject the Hard Rock leisure project in Tarragonès, the Fourth Belt (the section of the B-40 highway in the Vallès Occidental) and the El Prat airport expansion.
under the motto ‘We defend the earth, we build the future’the participants have charged against the budget agreement and what they consider “a model that bets on the capitalist system and carves the social, economic and environmental future” that Catalonia needs.
Opponents of the macro-projects have made proclamations such as ‘The land is not for sale’ or ‘Less Port Aventura and more agriculture’. Leaders of the CUP and the commoners have joined this mobilization which has been organized by the ZeroPort, Parem Hard Rock and Campanya Contra el Quart Cinturó platforms. In addition, more than 90 groups and entities have joined.
environmental blackmail
Before starting the protest, representatives of the three main organizing platforms have denounced, in statements to the press, the economic and land-use model behind these urban initiatives.
The spokesperson for the Aturem el Quart Cinturó Platform, Joan Carles Sallas, denounced that “they act as environmental blackmail to budgets when they have nothing to do with it”, since they have become conditions for the PSC to approve the Government’s accounts. For this reason, he has defended “another land management model that respects nature and biodiversity.
ZeroPort’s spokesperson, Ariadna Cotén, has charged against the “speculators and big businessmen“, which has ensured that they are the “only” who benefit from projects such as the Hard Rock, the B-40 and the expansion of the El Prat airport. Anna Recasens, from the Aturem Hard Rock Platform, has celebrated the unit shown this Saturday against a model “that carves the territory”.
The deputy of the CUP-NCG Xavier Pellicer has criticized that the Government has “no direction” and that its policy “is the one set by the PSC and JxCat”, that is why he has warned that the ‘communs’ “have the key” because the budgets of the Generalitat, which will be voted on next week in Parliament, “whether they go ahead or not”. For the anti-capitalists, the accounts are based on “macroprojects, macroprojects and more macroprojects” and consolidate “a model of precariousness that what it achieves is destroying the territory and making society precarious.”
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In addition, he has regretted that ERC has had as a partner “the grayest PSC in history, more right-wing, more Spanish and anti-ecologist“, which by the hand of JxCat knocked down that the budgets include the pilot plan for a universal basic income that both the CUP and En Comú Podem defend.
The leader of the ‘comuns’, Jéssica Albiach, has cried out against the “climate denialism” of these projects. Albiach has reminded both the ERC and the PSC and Junts that Catalonia is experiencing a situation of drought and has pointed out that “the largest casino in Europe” would consume “as much water as the city of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat”. “We urge these three parties to side with the people and stop protecting those who want to make a business of our lives,” she said.