Carlos Guisasola Madrid

Madrid

Updated Thursday, February 15, 2024-23:57

  • Event The secrets of the controversial 'mascletà' of Almeida: more gunpowder (307 kilos) and less noise than in Valencia... and pending a judge's decision

Gunpowder is the fashionable fragrance these days in the capital. It is for José Luis Martínez-Almeida, promoter of the now famous

mascletà

, which has become a

trending topic

of the political week. In Cibeles they await the judge's resolution, after an animal association presented an appeal on Wednesday in the Contentious-Administrative Court. «It will be able to develop without problems. "They are quite artificial controversies," said the vice mayor,

Inma Sanz

, yesterday after the Government Board, since health has been causing problems for the mayor in recent weeks. The municipal Executive was sure yesterday that everything will continue its course. There is no plan B.

The 307 kilos of gunpowder that will explode next to the Puente del Rey also demand the nose of the opposition. «They do not have a single paper in order to fire that amount of gunpowder. "They have had the terrible idea of ​​burning that amount in an environment like Madrid Río," replied the leader of Más Madrid,

Rita Maestre

, a notable figure in Manuela Carmena's Government. Curiously, in the same area of ​​Madrid Río, only in December 2018, a large amount of kilos of gunpowder exploded. It was, specifically, on the Toledo Bridge, one of the architectural icons of the city. According to the Consistory's transparency portal, the pyrotechnic show, known as the Winter Solstice, and executed by the company Pirotecnia Vulcano, had a cost of 31,218 euros (there are two different invoices of 15,609). Two years earlier, in 2016, there was another similar event, 400 meters from the Puente del Rey that, in a way, leaves simple criticism for an environmental issue in the background.

Today

Reyes Maroto

, spokesperson for the PSOE in the capital, will visit the area around the Puente del Rey where, if the judge does not say otherwise, the mascletà will be celebrated this Sunday. "The location could be different, the act is done for political purposes," was his position after Almeida's announcement. However, there was another time, in the awakening of the 80s, when

Tierno Galván

and

Ricard Pérez Casado

, mayors of Madrid and Valencia, respectively, both from the PSOE, organized some Fallas in the capital. There were mascletàs. There was noise. There was gunpowder. They were also different times, of course.

"It seems like we are aliens"

"I ask that no one spoil something nice between Madrid and Valencia and that we leave the politicking for later," lamented

María José Catalá

, first mayor of Valencia and star guest next Sunday. «It seems that we Valencians are aliens because we are from 1 to 19, every day, living a

mascletà

. We also have animals, we also have vegetation, we also have pregnant women like me last year and 19 days of

mascletà

and nothing has happened to us. And it turns out that in Madrid having a

mascletà

one day seems to be a very serious issue," Catalá, one of the dozens of Valencians who will travel to Madrid this weekend, protested again.

The fact is that, yesterday, in the offices of the Cibeles Palace, the process was accelerated to complete a key file so that Almeida's great pyrotechnic act can go ahead. The essential safety, environmental impact or mobility plan so that it can be held on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. "We understand that all the technical requirements are met and it will develop normally," they noted yesterday late in the afternoon, regarding an issue that has dominated the political news of the week. Surely, no one, not even in Valencia, would have thought that a

mascletà

could make so much noise.