What did Jaume Collboni do before he became mayor of Barcelona?

This Saturday the big surprise broke out at the Barcelona City Council: against all odds, the socialist Jaume Collboni has managed to be sworn in as the new mayor of Barcelona. Although it seemed that Xavier Trias (whose Junts candidacy received the most votes) would regain the mayoralty with the support of the ERC, Collboni finally got the baton thanks to some support that seemed incompatible: Ada Colau's commoners, who preferred to support a left-wing candidate, and the PP of Daniel Sirera, who wanted to avoid a pro-independence mayor's office.

In this way, the PSC (Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya) once again occupies a mayoralty as important as that of Barcelona twelve years later: after having led the City Council for more than 30 years in a row with four socialist mayors (among them Pasquall Maragall), the last mayor of the PSC in Barcelona had been Jordi Hereu, whose term ended in 2011. Now, Jaume Collboni becomes by surprise the new mayor and heir to that legacy, and also represents an important consolation for the Socialists after the loss of territorial power caused by the results of the 28-M elections.

Of course, Collboni was already a well-known face in Barcelona politics, and has even been part of the municipal government in recent years.

He was already deputy mayor

Jaume Collboni, now 53 years old, has always been heavily involved in politics, joining the PSC in the early 1990s. When he was young, he developed a union and student activism that led him to be general secretary of the Association of Young Students of Catalonia (AJEC) between 1992 and 1995, a time when he was studying Law at the University of Barcelona, studies of which he graduated to become a lawyer by profession.

As a member of the PSC, his first relevant position was that of spokesman for the Barcelona district of Horta-Guinardó between 1995 and 1999. At the same time, he continued to deepen his union career: he was a member of the UGT National Directorate between 1998 and 2005. In addition, between 2001 and 2005 he held the position of counselor in union representation of the Economic and Social Council of Spain..

He has also played an important role in regional politics: he was a deputy in the Parliament of Catalonia between 2010 and 2014, during which time he held various positions and even became spokesman for the Socialist Parliamentary Group for a brief period of three and a half months, after end of 2012. It was in 2014 when he decided to focus on local politics, and ran in the primaries to be a candidate for mayor of Barcelona for the PSC. Collboni won those primaries, and in his first elections to the Barcelona City Council, in 2015, his candidacy finished in fifth place and obtained 4 councilors.

Initially, he was in opposition to the commons of Ada Colau, but in 2016 he signed a coalition agreement with them to enter the municipal government. That made Collboni second deputy mayor, and he was in charge of the Business, Culture and Innovation areas. However, the following year, Colau expelled the Socialists from his government due to the support of the PSOE and the PSC for the application of article 155 in Catalonia..

Jaume Collboni and his family returned with more strength to the municipal government of Barcelona during the second term of Ada Colau. In the 2019 elections, Collboni notably improved his results and was third force, with 8 councilors. His new coalition pact with the commons gave him the position of first deputy mayor this time, reflecting his greater strength in the consistory, and he took over the areas of Economy, Labor, Competitiveness and Finance. But that time he did not reach the end of the legislature either, since he himself decided to leave the municipal government and his act as councilor at the beginning of this year 2023 to focus on the electoral campaign: in these last elections his results have improved again, being second force with 10 councilors and finally reaching the mayoralty.

On the other hand, Collboni has also gained importance over the years within his party at an organic level: since 2021 he has been deputy first secretary of the PSC.