Ada Colau opened this Friday the round of electoral interviews of Jordi Wild with a warning to Pedro Sánchez. If Frente Amplio has the necessary seats to re-establish a progressive Government, it will demand that the next Executive lower the price of rents and act against the accumulation of housing. "Promises are no longer valid," said the former mayor of Barcelona on 'The Wild Project'. In just over two hours, she also explained why she returned to politics, what she would have demanded from the PSOE after the Ábalos case, and where she believes the Government made a mistake in Ceuta.
Colau's was the first of the three conversations that Jordi Wild publishes at the start of the 29N campaign, ahead of those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Pedro Sánchez. Santiago Abascal withdrew from the special on the day he was supposed to record. Colau said that it was her 15-year-old son who first suggested she go on the podcast. The political reason came later. She wanted to speak to young people who distrust parties and who rarely encounter a candidate in the usual campaign formats.
Interview with Ada Colau on 'The Wild Project', by Jordi Wild
From Maricarmen to the proposal to expropriate 100,000 homes Wild read her a statement from a year ago in which she ruled out running for election again. Colau responded that she was serious then and that, after eight years as mayor, she wanted to recover time with her children. The eviction of Maricarmen Abascal and the protests that followed made her change her mind. The 87-year-old woman was evicted from her home in Madrid on September 23. Congress overturned the two housing decrees on October 2 and Sánchez announced the early election three days later. This Thursday, on the eve of the campaign, the Permanent Deputation has passed one of the texts by 35 votes to 34.
Colau proposes lowering rents with an index linked to salaries and expanding the public housing stock. She has also recovered a measure she already defended in Malaga last week. She wants to incorporate about 100,000 homes that Frente Amplio attributes to thirteen international funds into the public housing stock, through an expropriation law with compensation. "Expropriating them by paying," she specified to Wild, who asked her about the price. Colau defended an appraisal below market value. The Constitution requires that an expropriation be justified by public utility or social interest and that the corresponding compensation be paid.
The other instrument would be a 10% tax on the value of the affected homes, with exemption if they are used for affordable and stable rent. When it was presented in October, Frente Amplio set the threshold for individuals at the fourth home and an accumulated real estate assets exceeding 800,000 euros. Wild asked her about an inherited apartment that remains empty and into which a vulnerable family moves. Colau defended municipal mediation to rehouse them and return the property to the owner. She also proposed that the Administration guarantee payment to small landlords who offer an affordable price if the tenant is in a vulnerable situation.
Colau sets conditions for the PSOE and explains why there were no primaries with Podemos
Colau has shown herself willing to negotiate another coalition government with the PSOE, from which she would demand commitments on housing, taxation, and the fight against corruption. She recalled that, according to her, Sánchez promised her to regulate rents in 2019, when she was mayor. The state law was approved in 2023, and the caps began to be applied in 140 Catalan municipalities in March 2024. The distance between these dates explains the reproach she repeated during the interview. If her deputies are necessary for an investiture, she wants the agreement to translate into measures that reach homes sooner.
Wild asked her if she would have left the Government after the Ábalos case. Colau said she would have demanded more explanations or anti-corruption measures and set the breaking point at the accreditation of the party's involvement. She defended removing those responsible for an individual case and assessing the continuity of the coalition. She also expressly excluded the Ábalos case from what she considers a political use of justice, recalling the lawsuits filed against her during and after her municipal term that were dismissed. The Supreme Court sentenced former socialist minister José Luis Ábalos to 24 years and three months in prison in the Mascarillas case in June.
The unity to the left of the PSOE led to another exchange. Colau assured that she would have stepped aside if another person gathered more support and attributed the lack of time for Frente Amplio not holding primaries. According to her version, Podemos refused to sit down to negotiate how to organize them. The Podemos leadership maintained in October that it was Frente Amplio who rejected converging through open primaries. The disagreement has a concrete electoral consequence. In Madrid, there will be two ballots, Emilio Delgado's for Frente Amplio and Irene Montero's for Podemos, while in the Valencian Community and the Canary Islands, both forces share candidacies.
The reproach to Sánchez for Ceuta and the accounts of her time in Barcelona
"The first response given by the Government, and specifically by the Presidency, was not the best," Colau said about last summer's Ceuta border crisis. She argued that Sánchez should have gone there and mobilized resources from the very first moment. She also pointed to Morocco for having allowed, in her opinion, the entry of thousands of people and called for a review of agreements with Rabat. In the section dedicated to immigration, she advocated for orderly management and the same rules for everyone. She also highlighted the importance of foreign workers in the welfare state. The Social Security reported this Friday that in October it registered almost 3.7 million foreign affiliates.
Security returned to the conversation when reviewing her mayorship. The 91% cited in the podcast corresponds to arrests for theft in Barcelona in 2024, according to data provided by the Mossos d’Esquadra to Maldita.es. The figure describes arrests for that crime in a specific year. Colau defended neighborhood policing and called for more resources for courts to resolve repeat offender cases sooner. When Wild asked her to point out her own mistakes, she mentioned two decisions: accepting the America's Cup sailing race and deploying door-to-door waste collection in Sant Andreu when the city was still emerging from the pandemic. In the 2023 municipal elections, Barcelona en Comú came in third with nine councilors, behind Xavier Trias and Jaume Collboni.
Colau also defended Óscar Puente taking political responsibility after the Urda train accident, in which 69 people died. She explained that she understood the minister remaining in office after the first major accident, but that she called for his resignation after the second. She questioned the outsourcing of railway maintenance and referred the determination of specific causes to the investigation. Puente announced his resignation on November 3 in the Congress's Permanent Deputation.
In the final stretch, Colau defended her participation in the Gaza flotilla against Wild's skepticism about its usefulness. She recounted that she embarked after months of protests and attributed part of the change in position of European governments to the mobilization. Asked about Israel, she advocated for cutting commercial relations and arms trafficking. Spain already prohibited by decree in 2025 the trade of defense material with Israel and the import of products from settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. Colau also expressed support for closing the military bases used by the United States in Spain and acknowledged that it would take time.
Wild asked her as they said goodbye if she regretted having gone. "It was very hard," Colau replied, taking advantage of her last minutes to acknowledge that the left has been "too moralistic" and to defend that it discuss its proposals with those who disagree with it. Her next rally will be this Saturday at noon in the Seville neighborhood of Tiro de Línea. On Sunday she will campaign in Zaragoza with Chunta Aragonesista.
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