Barcelona City Council has decided to close all its accounts on this social media network, except for the profile @bcn_ajuntament, which will only be used to give information on emergencies, weather alerts and disruptions to mobility.
The decision corresponds to the City Council’s commitment to reliable communication, in the face of the disinformation generated by the X platform. The aim of the move is to guarantee that members of the public receive reliable information in line with the values of digital democracy.
Despite closing its X accounts, the City Council will continue to provide information through its other official channels, such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn, as well as the municipal website. This will allow the institution to continue its broad coverage of verified and accessible information for citizens.
The profile @puntBarcelona has also ceased to be present on X, but we remain active on Instagram and Facebook. You can also sign up for the digital newsletter to get updated official information directly by email.
February got under way with some changes to mobility in the city. The new by-law on circulation in the city, which you can find on the website mobilitat.barcelona, aims to preserve pavements as pedestrian spaces by prohibiting bikes and personal mobility vehicles (PMV) from circulating on them, except for children with bicycles and those accompanying them.
It’s worth noting that PMVs will now be classed as unipersonal vehicles, meaning they can only carry one person, and should have essential safety elements: helmets are obligatory, and the vehicle must have front and back lights. The current legislation prohibits the use of PMVs by those under 16 and establishes a speed limit of 25 km/h.
The new text prohibits bikes and PMVs from circulating on pavements, which will be exclusively for pedestrians. As an exception, adults carrying children with authorised systems (trailers or child-seats) or accompanying children up to 12 years of age on bicycles will be able to circulate on pavements, as will those under 14 and adults transporting children where there is no bike lane.
Either way, the obligation remains for cyclists and PMV riders to get off their vehicle in crowded spaces shared with pedestrians.
Besides the specific prohibition on parking motorcycles on pavements near schools and hospitals, the by-law on circulation, pedestrians and vehicles also means fines for parking in front of reserved pedestrian entrances, in bike lanes or in front of waste containers. The recommendation continues to be to park these vehicles on road surfaces.
The new by-law also introduces fines of up to 500 euros to guarantee compliance with the measures established. Besides the website mobilitat.barcelona, the new by-law can be found in Barcelona City Council’s Open Repository on Knowledge.
Access to housing is one of the main challenges for the city in the coming years. Barcelona has launched a new strategy to respond to the issue during this term of office, thePla Viure.
The plan, which users can follow on the website habitatge.barcelona, not only defines the goals but also the actions and services in this area for the period 2025-2032, notable aspects being:
Making the right to housing universal: enlarging the stock of affordable social housing.
Renovating and improving housing: with sustainability, accessibility and comfort.
Addressing vulnerability: the demographic challenge and life stages.
The future Barcelona Housing Plan 2025-2032 is now under way with aparticipatory process open to everybody. In this first stage, an assessment will be made of the measures implemented in recent years in the city, with discussions on new proposals for the next eight years. The participatory sessions will run until the summer of 2025.If you want to stay up to date, don’t forget to check the website habitatge.barcelona.
The 81st annual ICANN meeting was held in Istanbul from 9 to 14 November. ICANN is the organisation responsible at an international level for coordinating various technical aspects of the internet, to guarantee that it works in a safe, stable and accessible way for everybody. The team from .barcelona took part in the meeting and came back to the city with a wealth of new information and knowledge.
The future of the internet, increasingly diverse and inclusive
One of the star topics at the meeting was the importance of international domain names (IDN). This means that we will increasingly see domains with characters from other alphabets, such as the Cyrillic or Arabic alphabets, plus domains that contain characters unique to the Catalan language, such as those using .barcelona, favouring the use of our language. This is great news for cultural and linguistic diversity on the internet!
The ICANN highlighted the importance of promoting universal acceptance, where all of us as users get accustomed to using these domains in our daily life. This will make the internet even more open and accessible for everybody.
New opportunities and challenges for .barcelona
The draft for the ICANN strategic plan for 2030, to be presented in 2026, was another topic at the meeting. There was also extensive discussion about the new round of geographical Top-Level Domains (gTLD) being opened up in 2026. This new stage represents a great opportunity for new stakeholders, at the same time posing challenges in terms of management and competitiveness for new domains and existing domains alike.
As a member of the GeoTLD group, the .barcelona team are closely involved with the implementation of the directive on the resilience of essential entities (NIS2). This European directive establishes new cybersecurity requisites for essential services, such as domain registers. Our team has already started working to adapt to the new regulation and ensure that .barcelona is a domain offering maximum security and reliability for all our users.
Strengthening ties with the .barcelona community
During the annual meeting, we took the opportunity to meet with main registration companies for the domain and to strengthen our collaboration. These meetings are fundamental for ensuring the domain works well and offering a quality service to users.
What does all this mean?
These new developments allow us to look to the future with optimism. The .barcelona domain is growing and constantly evolving to adapt to the new trends of the internet. We want .barcelona to be your trusted domain, a space where you can express your digital identity and connect with the city’s community.
ICANN81 was a unique opportunity for the .barcelona domain to be at the forefront of debate on the future of the internet and be involved in defining the regulations that govern it. The meeting helped us collaborate with other stakeholders in the sector and put .barcelona on the map as a leader in managing geographical city domains.
The city’s most unique sports event is here! The Firefighters’ Run turns 25 in great shape, consolidated as one of the unmissable meetings on the calendar, and with its website cursadebombers.barcelona that has already sold out all the numbers.
One of the most eagerly awaited aspects was the presentation of the commemorative t-shirt, a design inspired by the working uniform of the Barcelona Fire Service. The piece pays homage to their bravery and dedication and will be the distinctive element in what promises to be a special occasion for everybody taking part.
An official mobile app of the event is also being launched, developed by the tech sponsor NTT Data. The app will allow runners to keep track of their times in real time and access detailed information about the event, including road closures and news.The Vueling Cursa Bombers Barcelona is being held on 10 November, turning the city into the scene for one of the most iconic athletics events.
The second edition of the participatory budgets is now under way. Members of the public can choose which projects they want to be implemented in their district in the next four years. The process will be conducted via the decidim.barcelona platform and run until April 2025.
Proposals are put forward in the first stage. They can be submitted until 29 November, and this stage also offers the chance to discuss them in face-to-face sessions held all around the city, with information on these here.
Projects of general interest or municipal responsibility will be accepted and should meet a series of requisites: able to be executed during this term of office, with a specific purpose, following criteria on sustainability and not compromising any programmes, plans or urban projects already approved. They can be projects to improve public space, municipal facilities or the acquisition or renovation of assets.
Once the stage for proposals is over, the next stage entails a technical assessment of their feasibility, to be completed in January 2025. At that point members of the public can vote for the initiatives they consider the most important, using the decidim.barcelona platform or the face-to-face support points. The 25 projects with the most backing in each district will go into the final voting stage, with support from municipal specialists.
The winning projects will be executed before 2027, with an overall budget of 30 million euros to be invested. Full information on the process and how to take part can be found on decidim.barcelona. The platform details all the steps to follow to be a part of the second edition of the participatory budgets.
Our main festival takes place this year from the 20th to 24th September. Five days to enjoy music, gastronomy, culture, open days and street art. Here are six glimpses of everything it has to offer, and you can look this all up on the merce.barcelona website.
There can be no mercé without the pregón, and the honour this year of starting the festivities falls to the artist Carme Solé. Casablanca will be the guest city, and will share its vibrant sounds, dances and visual arts with us.
The 2024 Piromusical will definitely be remembered as one with a strong auteur style. Rosalía will be choosing the songs that will be played on 24th September at 10:00 p.m. The Avenida de la Reina Maria Cristina will be full once again with spectators who’ll be able to witness a breathtaking spectacle of bursts, light and colour, all perfectly in sync with music picked by one of the greatest artists in the world today.
Music is one of the main elements of the Barcelona Festival. Live performances by 140 artists and musical groups will take place on fourteen stages across the city, at Música Mercè, the BAM, as well as the concerts organised by radio stations.
And when it comes to popular culture, the 200th birthday of Josep Anselm Clavé will be commemorated this year, a musician whose L’aplec del Remei zarzuela will be performed on the 23rd. The city’s Aligá, which is even older, celebrates its 650th anniversary in the Plaça de Sant Jaume, on Sunday, 22nd September.
Elsewhere, the Ciutadella park will be the scene of the fourth edition of Terra i Gust, the sustainable food festival. Tastings, showcookings and workshops regarding food and drink will once again be on offer, and reflections will be made on food waste, sustainable fishing and water.
To cap it all off, the traditional La Mercè-Bimbo Global Race will take place on 29th September. The family race is added to the traditional routes this year, a fun and non-competitive activity set up to run a short and central route.Don’t forget that you can find all the information at merce.barcelona. Long live La Mercé and long live Barcelona!
This autumn, from 8 to 13 October, a new edition of the Biennial of Thought will bring debate and reflection back to the city’s streets and squares. The event will feature more than 100 experts on topics including democracy, memory, postcolonialism, feminism, technology and climate change and cultural debates.
Under the theme ‘The Day After It All’, the fourth edition of the biennaldepensament.barcelonawill focus on deconstructing the defining principles and dynamics of the past two centuries, which are now at odds with a future where sustainability, social justice and the fight against inequalities are paramount.
To reflect upon these major philosophical debates and the global transformations happening all around us, the Biennial will feature 120 participants and 65 free activities, with no prior registration necessary. The list of notable guests includes Herta Müller, Perejaume, Wajdi Mouawad, Jacques Rancière, Jason Hickel, Zadie Smith, Elena Martín, Donatella della Porta, Javier Pérez Royo, Eliane Brum, Oyèrónké Oyèwùmi, Begoña Román, Las Hijas De Felipe, Maria Rovira (Oye Sherman) and Ana Polo, Rocío Quillahuaman and Jean-Rémi Carbonneau.
The debates will take place in the CCCB, Can Felipa, Canòdrom, La Model, Plaça de Masadas, Plaça de la Virreina and the gardens of Pla i Armengol, among other venues. This edition of the Biennial coincides with Barcelona’s year as the European Capital of Democracy, which aims to strengthen the connection between participation and citizenship.Visit biennaldelpensament.barcelona for all the information.
The third edition of the Neighbourhood Plan, the series of small-scale actions to reduce inequalities in specific areas of Barcelona, is under way. The plan targets those who suffer the effects and consequences of vulnerability the most, such as women, elderly people, teenagers and migrants.
The plan should reach a quarter of the city’s population, around 27 neighbourhoods in seven different districts, with an overall investment of 300 million euros. Two unique urban regeneration plans will be added from 2025, for the mountain neighbourhoods and for La Marina del Prat Vermell.
The new Neighbourhood Plan consolidates some of the policies already started and acts in a more specific and intensive way in neighbourhoods covered in the previous editions. The plan is distributed in three main spheres: education and culture, public space and accessibility, and housing and renovation, with new strategies in the fight against inequalities.
In a context of climate emergency, the search for innovative solutions to achieve greater comfort and energy efficiency in buildings is essential. Barcelona is testing three prototypes that use industrialised construction to respond to the challenge to improve the habitability and sustainability of existing buildings, reducing CO₂ emissions and energy consumption.
The three winning projects from the ideas competition launched in 2022 by the Fundació BIT Habitat and the Municipal Institute of Urban Planning are the prototypes ALIGRA, Regenerar Barcelona and InnoFAB. The projects consist of large modules that resemble three building façades, designed to adapt to existing residential blocks.
Made of wood and metal, the structures add a new façade to buildings and help create new spaces (balconies, new rooms and communal areas), or to improve their insulation and the impact of the sun. Constructions are also planned for rooftops, to add solar panelling, green rooftops and enable buildings to collect and reuse rainwater. These industrial systems can be manufactured in parts in workshops and then assembled directly on buildings quickly, easily and economically.
The three prototypes will be monitored for 12 months at a site on the Campus Diagonal – Besòs of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), in Sant Adrià de Besòs, to assess their impact for health and comfort, urban resilience, energy efficiency, circular economy and biodiversity. This will be possible thanks to the installation of a smart sensor system able to continuously measure various parameters. You can find more information on the website bithabitat.barcelona.
