“Catalonia cannot be presided over by someone who is distant from the problems of the people and only talks about himself”. With these words addressed to Carles Puigdemont, Pere Aragonès parked his propositional hyperactivity for a few moments yesterday to delve even deeper into the inherent climate of every campaign: the attack on the electoral opponent.
The president of the Generalitat yesterday attended the Barcelona Tribuna colloquium, presented by journalist Marc Giró and organized at the Melià Sarrià hotel by La Vanguardia together with the Barcelona Economic Society of Friends of the Country, chaired by Miquel Roca, and the AED (Spanish Association of Directors). For the occasion, he revealed a whole series of initiatives carried out by his Government during these last three years, he insisted on his claim of own funding for Catalonia and gave some outlines of his proposal for El Prat airport.
But he marked the meeting with his criticism of Puigdemont and Junts. Not only is the post-convergence candidate disqualified, according to Aragonès, from presiding over Catalonia for talking “only about himself”, but also for “rejecting all debates about the country model and the funding that Catalonia needs”.
The republican also called into question the calls for unity that the former president has voiced since he announced his candidacy for the Catalan elections on May 12. “Unity is not an object that you use at your convenience, it is demonstrated by facts. And during all this time, the public statements have not been along these lines”, said Aragonès. In addition, he highlighted the contradiction that, in his opinion, exists between making this call and having abandoned the Government Together in October 2022.
This is why, according to the national coordinator of Esquerra, Puigdemont has a lack of “credibility” when it comes to urging unity if you also take into account that JxCat did not support the 2024 budgets that present the Government. The rejection of the numbers by the Parliament led Aragonès to call the elections.
However, Puigdemont did not take all the time of the intervention. Salvador Illa, candidate of the PSC in the parliamentary elections, was also the target of his reproaches. He introduced it with a statement similar to the one used with the former president, but with different content: “Catalonia cannot be presided over by someone who conforms and stands with folded arms in front of a fiscal deficit of 22,000 million”.
Precisely, to end this deficit, Aragonès insisted again yesterday on the need for Catalonia to provide itself with unique financing. He described this deficit and the current financing system as “unbearable, outdated, opaque and unfair”. With a system that would allow the Generalitat to collect all taxes, the head of government assured that Catalonia would have around 52,000 million euros at its disposal. “Double what we have today”, he added.
In the room, while making this claim, the president of Foment del Treball, Josep Sánchez Llibre, the president of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, Josep Santacreu, from Pimec, Antoni Cañete, as well as Xavier Panés, from Cecot, were present. . Josep Mateu, from the RACC, Camil Ros, from the UGT, and members of the board of the Societat Econòmica d’Amics, such as Joan Majó, Santi Vila, Martí Parellada and Josep Caminal, also attended.
But in his demand there is a main difficulty: Pedro Sánchez has made it clear that there will be a change in the financing system, but for all the autonomous communities. The President of the Central Government wants a multilateral relationship; Aragonès calls for bilateralism, because he asserts that this is “how Catalonia has progressed”. And he reprimanded Illa for defending a “system without privileges”. “Ending the fiscal deficit of 22,000 million is not a privilege”, reasoned Aragonès.
As an example, he gave the cancellation of the debt of 15,000 million from the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (FLA) that Esquerra negotiated for the investiture of Sánchez as President of the Government; or the transfer of the minimum vital income (IMV), or of Rodalies. “The Catalonia of 8 million [inhabitants] cannot be managed with the resources for 6 million”, cried Aragonès, referring to one of the slogans launched during the presidency of Jordi Pujol. According to the republican, if Catalonia does not have all the resources it generates “it will soon hit the ceiling”.
