Foment del Treball has marked distances with the proposal of the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, to intervene in the housing market. The director of Studies and Economy of the Catalan employers' association, Salvador Guillermo, has made it clear that this path does not convince the business organization and has demanded a metropolitan-scale response in the face of the housing crisis.
Guillermo expressed it in an interview on the program Good morning, Barcelona, after Collboni defended that intervention in an event held at the Foment headquarters. The mayor already maintained at the end of last year that ensuring young people can continue living in Barcelona will be a priority for the municipal government for 2026.
Criticisms of the measures applied in Barcelona
Foment's economic head has questioned some of the policies promoted by the latest municipal governments. Among them, the reservation of 30% for protected housing, a measure that, in his opinion, has not yielded the expected results. In that sense, he has pointed out that these are solutions that have not quite worked.
The employers' association places part of the problem in the lack of available land within Barcelona. From that premise, Guillermo maintains that housing policies cannot be limited to the municipal area and must be thought of in a broader scope, connected with the whole of the metropolitan area.
The employers ask to broaden the focus
"We are saturated, therefore housing policy can only be thought of in metropolitan terms" - Salvador Guillermo, director of Studies and Economy of Foment del Treball
With that idea, Foment defends that the housing access crisis demands supramunicipal planning. The employers' association understands that Barcelona, by itself, has a limited margin due to the scarcity of land and that any effective strategy involves coordinating supply and residential growth beyond the limits of the Catalan capital.
The access to the city, linked to economic capacity
In the same interview, asked if Barcelona residents have the right to live in the city, Guillermo responded with a forceful statement. He affirmed that the Barcelona resident will have the right to whatever their pocket allows them, a reflection that summarizes the approach with which the employers' association addresses the debate on access to housing in Barcelona.
The clash of positions once again evidences the distance between the approach of the municipal government and that of Foment del Treball in one of the central debates of the city, with housing as the axis and with the metropolitan scale as the main point of friction.