Cerdanyola del Vallès council has unanimously voted to oppose Bellaterra’s proposed segregation and annexation to Sant Cugat, putting the city at the centre of a long-running local dispute. The council says the legal conditions for the change are not met and wants Bellaterra to keep a stronger Decentralised Municipal Entity, or EMD, with more powers and funding.
The approved motion rejects the petition from the Bellaterra-Sant Cugat Commission and backs the technical and legal report prepared by Cerdanyola council. The final decision now rests with the Catalan government. During the plenary debate, David González, the councillor for relations with Bellaterra, said that none of the legal conditions for segregation are present and noted that no supra-municipal administration has issued reports supporting the change.
Cerdanyola’s position is that Bellaterra should not move to Sant Cugat, but should instead keep and strengthen its EMD. González said Sant Cugat council only sees annexation as viable if the Bellaterra EMD disappears. Cerdanyola argues for the opposite approach, with more powers and resources for the local body. Sant Cugat had already approved a report that found Bellaterra’s integration technically viable, although it left open the legal question of the EMD’s role.
Several municipal groups said Bellaterra’s future within Cerdanyola should involve greater self-government, and they pointed to the Valldoreix EMD agreement as a possible model. Josep Maria Riba, president of the Bellaterra EMD, said negotiations on a new agreement should continue while the Catalan government examines the segregation file. He said the two processes are different paths.
Mayor Carlos Cordón said Cerdanyola will try to finalise a new agreement with Bellaterra before 2027, with more funding and more powers. ERC spokesperson Isaac Martínez said many people in Bellaterra have distanced themselves from Cerdanyola, and warned that the conflict will not be solved by an administrative decision alone. Cordón described the vote as the council’s first institutional response to the dispute, and said the Catalan government’s ruling could still take several months, with possible timings including September, December or February.
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