As the new President of the Economic and Social Council of Barcelona, it gives me great pleasure to address our website to all those who have an interest in the economic and social life of Barcelona, our city, and of course to all those who live, work and study in the Metropolitan Area and the Metropolitan Region. I take office after a brilliant and fruitful period during the previous presidency of Mr. Francesc Castellana Aregall, with the desire to continue in the same line of action as in the period from July 2021 to December 2024.

Barcelona is a city that is fully open to the world, a city of men and women with many hopes, interests, concerns, joys, disappointments and from which many cities and territories want to learn. It is a city in which intense cultural, economic and social activity coexists with inequalities of which we are aware and which can be seen with a metro journey of just 45 minutes.

The richness of our city is based on the melting pot of cultures and languages that we see every day, while at the same time this brings with it a need to adopt measures that enable the citizens of Barcelona to benefit from all this richness and not see it as a problem.

Statutes of the CESB makes you that 'it is a consultative and participatory in nature generally based on the representation of interests, in the social and economic representative most of agents of the city of Barcelona participating (...), on the subject to dialogue and consensus in the economic, social and consumer.

I ask for collaboration so that the Council, as it has been during the mandate of Mr. Francesc Castellana, continues to be of practical use to our city and that it is seen, and felt, by our City Council and by those who are part of it, as a body that, in its proposals, recommendations, reports, wishes to improve everything that affects our city, that seeks complicity and collaboration to achieve the objectives set out in its Statutes. Collaboration is absolutely necessary, because there is no single person or entity or institution that has the magic answers to all the questions and problems that the City Council has to deal with every day. And always in permanent dialogue with trade unions and employers' organizations.

At a time like the present of many political, economic and social uncertainties, we must raise our sights and make well-documented and well-founded proposals that will continue to be useful for our city to move forward in the construction of a fairer and more inclusive society. It is with this will that I begin my term of office.

Eduardo Rojo Torrecilla