The mayor of Zaragoza, Natalia Chueca, has turned the first day of the Debate on the state of the City into much more than a balance of her first three years in office. Chueca has taken advantage of his first speech to vindicate the management model of the City Council, project the Zaragoza that he wants to build until 2027 and raise the tone against the Government of Pedro Sánchez, whom he has accused of deteriorating the institutions and of having exhausted his political career by demanding an early election.
For about two hours, the councillor has combined the balance of her executive with a long battery of announcements that will mark the last year of the mandate before the 2027 Municipal Elections. From the transformation of the Imperial Canal and a new baby cheque to the expansion of the supply of subsidised housing, the promotion of the airport, new investments in security or the creation of the Municipal Professional Conservatory of Music, Chueca has been unravelling a city project that he has presented as the continuity of the «transformation» that began in 2023. All this under the watchful eye of his predecessor, the current President of the Government of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, who has been present together with the President of the Cortes de Aragón, María Navarro, among other authorities.
This discourse of the future has been accompanied precisely by a constant comparison between municipal management and that of the central executive. In this sense, the mayor has defended the reduction of debt and the low tax burden of Zaragoza in the face of the increase in indebtedness and taxes in Spain and has summarized her model with an idea that she repeated on several occasions: «do more with less» thanks to an efficient management of public resources.
FROM POLITICAL CONFRONTATION TO THE ROADMAP FOR 2027
The most political part of the intervention has come when addressing the national situation. Chueca has appealed to the defence of democracy and the rule of law, has accused Sánchez’s government of «agonising counting the days left until its end» and has maintained that, when an Executive loses the trust of the citizens and stops keeping its word, «the only way to democracy is to give the word back to the citizens», in a clear reference to the call for elections. He has also recovered a well-known reflection by the former Aragonese president Luisa Fernanda Rudi on corruption as a threat to the democratic system.
On the other hand, a good part of the announcements have shared the same common thread: preparing Zaragoza to continue growing. Chueca spoke of a city that aspires to reach 800,000 inhabitants and presented a roadmap based on housing, mobility, attracting investment and improving public space.
Among the most outstanding measures are the transformation of the Imperial Canal with an investment of 17 million euros, the construction of 249 protected homes in Arcosur and Santa Isabel, new aid for rehabilitation, a study to define the future corridors of high-capacity urban public transport, the baby check of 300 euros from 2027 or the agreement to triple the airport’s destinations.
Added to this catalogue of projects is the implementation of the Chinese company In-Power Electric, which plans to create 120 jobs, the expansion of the video surveillance network and the Local Police, new plans for parks and squares, the transformation of the Iron Bridge, the creation of the Municipal Professional Conservatory of Music or the return of Goya to La Lonja in 2028, coinciding with the bicentennial of his death.
