Pere Aragonès is determined to exhaust the four years of his term. He has one year left, with the drought as the main problem and the resolution of the political conflict as the national objective, in addition to the transfer of Rodalies and its own financing for Catalonia. All of this requires intense dialogue with the Government of Pedro Sánchez, which is why the president of the Generalitat has wanted to reinforce his executive and has promoted the person who has most developed this role: Laura Vilagrà will occupy the vice-presidency of the Government. Until today she has been the counselor of the Presidency.
In the almost three years of the Aragonès Government’s legislature, Vilagrà has, in fact, served as vice president without holding the position. Since June 2021, when she was appointed councilor, she assumed a multifunctional superdepartment in charge of carrying out the main objectives of the Republicans.
However, this has not been the only change. Sergi Sabrià, who until now has appeared in the engine room as the president’s communications director, has today been appointed vice-minister of Communication Strategy. It is a position that has already existed in previous mandates.
The changes do not represent a restructuring and are more part of an ERC strategy to reinforce its image and to strengthen itself in the last year of the legislature in the face of “challenges that are difficult”, as expressed by the president in his appearance before the press at the Palau of the Generalitat. However, the gaze of the Republicans is also focused on the Catalan elections that Aragonès outlines for February 2025: until today, Esquerra has not managed to obtain benefits from his management at the head of the Government and hopes to do so in this final stretch.
“The tasks that Vilagrà will have to add are negotiation with the State,” Aragonès specified, in reference to Rodalies, the unique financing demanded by the Generalitat, or the recognition of Catalan, but above all, with respect to the demand for sovereignty of the independentists. “It is easier to do it from a vice presidency than from a department,” the head of the Catalan Executive justified.
“For Vice President Vilagrà I only have words of gratitude and praise for all the work carried out in all fundamental aspects,” said Aragonès. “She has played a leading political role in each of the most relevant negotiations carried out by the Government,” he added.
According to Aragonès, for the rest of the legislature there are “many challenges at the country level and a lot of responsibility.” Political conflict is on the agenda. ERC assumes that the amnesty will end, not only being approved in Congress, but that it will also be effective despite the judicial appeals that may be presented. But the president wants to “start the second phase of the negotiation process to talk about the sovereignty conflict with the State.” In the meeting on December 21 at the Palau de la Generalitat with Pedro Sánchez, both presidents agreed that the dialogue table between the two governments would resume in the first quarter of 2024.
