While posing for the photographer, José Luis Sanz (Seville, 1968) observes how the Andalusian city prepares for the next Holy Week with arrangements in the streets and montages of boxes. In the background, the noise of the union protests in front of the City Council for “unfair” dismissals.
There are many dualities in the Andalusian capital, but the most resistant is formed by a structure of rites and parties that mark the Hispanic calendar and the fight, because it is a fight, so that the capital takes the rhythm of its contemporary time. The city may be dedicated more to looking at the navel, to review the past looking back over the shoulder, than to bet on a clear project that the goal in the group of large European cities. His mayor came into the world as the last bourgeois revolutions, but, like everything born in the shadow of 68, in this 2025 he bets more on the reforms and at the day -to -day life of a mayor. He does not get along with the Government of Pedro Sánchez, but instead of launching cobblestones to pay attention, he sends letters.
Has Oscar Puente responded to the letter sent to him in Catalan, although the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility is from Valladolid?
Neither the one that was written in Catalan nor the others in which he requested a meeting, written in perfect Castilian. Unfortunately, the most antisevillano government passotism in our history is revealed.
Some interest will have, because every weekend they send Andalusia to Vice President María Jesús Montero …
Me to the minister, vice president or general secretary of the PSOE-A I predict little future, will have little travel. Even as a candidate for the presidency of the Junta de Andalucía. Because her recent statements about private universities or Dani Alves’ sentence surprise, but not the Andalusians, who already know her well. We know that she was the Minister of Finance who sat in the government councils that distributed the money of the ERE from one side to another. We know that it was the Minister of Health that the Military Hospital received to close it the next day and leave it for 14 years. We know that she is the minister and deputy for Seville, since 2019, who has not made any intervention for the claims of new infrastructure that the city demands, and that she is the vice president who has seen how more than 6,000 million euros have gone for Catalonia, specifically for the rail system, and has not said anything despite the lacks that the city has.
Do you think Montero wants to be a candidate for the Board?
It is very noticeable that she is a candidate for sticks, she knows perfectly that she will not win the next elections in 2026 and can surely worsen even the result of Juan Espadas. From what we see, the Andalusian socialists are going to miss Juan Espadas.
The opinion of the Constitutional Court on the judgment of the political piece and the tributes of the PSOE to several of the convicted seems to seek a bleach of the old Andalusian socialism. Do you think people have forgotten the “ERE case”?
Everything that they are doing surely comes very well for Messrs. Electorally, I don’t think it can benefit from this operation at all.
Seville is the fourth city of Spain, it is like the third tourist destination and has three of the five poorest and most degraded neighborhoods throughout the country. Do you have this last expiration date?
In principle, no, but because we are doing many things. The budget for social policies, in employment plans has been tripled and we are in contact with the Board to see which empty blocks, currently dedicated to planting marijuana, can be demolished to regenerate the area, open the neighborhoods and stop being a ghetto. 90% of people who live there are normal, such as you and me, but they have to live with 5% that are not.
Carlos Mazón has just approved the budgets of the Valencian Community thanks to Vox. You took the municipal accounts forward with the same party. Is it an radiography of what the PP will have to do to get to Moncloa?
I do not know, I do not know the surveys or what will happen when elections are convened, that Pedro Sánchez will not advance, but it could be a possible scenario at the national level. In my campaign, I took 600 days saying that I wanted to achieve a sufficient majority that would allow me to govern alone. It is what I have achieved, so I never wanted a pact, and what I have reached is an agreement to carry out a budget. It is a pact that referred to the media, whose points are known and public. We have not gone to Waterloo to agree something unknown. They are accounts centered on management that move away from the ideological, do not cross any red line. I thank Vox for the support to carry out the budget, because we have focused on the problems of the Sevillians.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo says that the government has little time left. Do you believe it?
I find it difficult to understand that I can endure the two years that they have left, because the deterioration and weekly degradation is brutal, but since we have a government president who cares about everything … I think the legislature will exhaust, but Sánchez is a disaster for Spain.
The punishment of Seville has a lot to do with that.
The PSOE knows that it has nothing to do in the next Andalusian elections and that in the municipal, Seville will be a national and regional objective.
The polarization of politics has limited the weight that municipalism had before, the day to day of what affects you.
It is the policy in which I believe, the day -to -day life, that of the neighborhood, that of the neighbor. The one to have coffee and a beer in any of the neighborhoods of Seville. The attitude of government and PSOE has polarized citizens a lot, but in the municipal are vote close and management of your day to day, which is the main thing.
Tourism is 25% of the city’s GDP, but its consequences have a brutal effect on the quality of life of Sevillians. Do you think Seville can die of success as it has already happened to other European cities, such as Venice or Florence?
Obviously, you have to take measures and adapt tourism, but very careful because it is the main industry of the city. It has to be an industry that must be taken care of and pampering. The big mistake of this city in recent years has been resigning that brutal dependence on the services sector and not looking for alternatives. You need more industry, more aerospace sector, more military industry; But here we do not do badly when we receive more than four million people a year. We have an imposing historic center and there are four hundred spaces cataloged as a good of cultural interest, something that only Rome has.
But does not have the feeling that the center has become a theme park?
(Silence) Well, sometimes yes, and against that we are fighting.
The drug traffickers already rise the Guadalquivir and reach the city center with their boats. Do you think that the drug trafficking problem can become something more serious and without a solution in the environment of Seville?
If Marlaska does not act, Seville will suffer the problem of drug trafficking. We have also sent letters, unanswered, to claim the national police that we need in Seville, along with the insufficient number of civil guards in the metropolitan area and in the river. When reinforcing the Cádiz area, the drug traffickers have found a crack without sufficient troops.
In the coming months several important events are expected, such as the celebration of the Copa del Rey or the United Nations Conference between June 30 and July 3. Is it going to be the final exam for the Hispanic capital?
They are a complicated months. At that UN meeting, the largest concentration of world leaders in the city will occur since the Expo’92, with the difference that in 1992 it was made for six months and this lasts less than a week. It has been working for a long time and I have no doubt that everything will be sure. In addition, it is a challenge and an opportunity to demonstrate that we are able to organize great events.
Will Donald Trump come?
(Silence) I have no idea …
If I came, where would it take you?
For pleasure, anywhere, of course, but would attend to any other state president who comes to Seville. Much more if it is the first power in the world.
They say that Malaga grows more than Seville and has gone from being the city of museums to become a world technological pole.Does something envy to his mayor, Francisco de la Torre?
Many things. First, which has been in the City Hall since 2000 and has been able to launch a great city project. The fate that he has had, in addition to being a great mayor for Los Malaga, is that he has had municipal stability, because the large city projects are not made in four or eight years.