The space occupied by Convergència is still listed. It is a land that both the PSC and ERC and Junts covet and yesterday it was Pere Aragonès who set foot on it. The president participated in a breakfast organized by Nueva Economía Fórum in the framework of the May 12 parliamentary elections and it was Andreu Mas-Colell, former Minister of Economy during the mandates of Artur Mas, who presented the candidate of ‘ERC. He presented him with words of praise and d’Aragonès assured that “it is good that today the Generalitat is led by a temperament like his”.
“At a political moment in which Catalonia is heir to turbulent times and opens up to uncertain perspectives, it is good that Pere Aragonès is called to play a key role in making them concrete”, Mas-Colell insisted.
The former councilor assessed that with the republican it is possible to “keep alive the hope of achieving the two goals of historical Catalanism: the prosperity of Catalonia and the preservation of the nation”. Objectives that, in turn and in his opinion, are indestructible. At the same time, he rejected other routes “that allow us to enjoy splendid landscapes, but that end in impassable paths and in potentially lethal collective discouragement, we know, we’ve experienced it”. A clear reference to the most intense years of the process.
Aragonés took the floor right after. He boasted of his “predictability”, basic to be reliable, he added. In his opinion, ERC and then its government have demonstrated this since 2018 and 2019, with a strategic change fully oriented towards dialogue and negotiation with PSOE governments.
Other ways, such as the confrontation that Junts has raised for years, have given, in his judgment, “few practical and positive results”. Added to this factor are the constant “changes of opinion” that Aragonès attributes to Carles Puigdemont and which give him little credibility, as the ERC national coordinator also suggested.
Aragonès criticized the unity that Puigdemont claims. “It must be demonstrated with facts”, he stressed, and recalled that JxCatva left the Government in October 2022. “It felt like we had the opposition within the Government”, he went so far as to say regarding the post-convergents. However, he avoided commenting on how to remake the unit. “I have extended my hand and it has not been reciprocated”, he limited himself to pointing out. The Junts leader, on the other hand, recently stated that the first person he would call if he were ready to be president again would be Aragonès.
Be that as it may, the ERC candidate noted that the path to negotiation will be blocked at some point if the PP gets Moncloa. “This window of opportunity will close and Catalonia” must take advantage of it, expressed the head of the Government, which is why he urged the voters to opt for his party “to make a great leap forward” that would take shape in an agreed referendum, the own funding that he has insistently demanded for Catalonia and social welfare.
Aragonès’ reasoning is that, unlike the previous Spanish legislature, Pedro Sánchez does not have the option of Citizens as an alternative way for pacts, which is why he speaks of a “window of opportunity” to achieve all these objectives.
According to the president, a government led by Salvador Illa, PSC candidate, would also endanger the possibility of a referendum or singular funding. Even the transfer of Rodalies is at risk, because “Illa has no interest”. Aragonès also criticized the PSC for going from defending linguistic immersion to defending the trilingualism proposed by Citizens.
