Friday, March 29

Aragonès confirms that he will not attend the Conference of Presidents of La Palma

The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, will not attend next Friday the Conference of Regional Presidents to be held on the Canary Island of La Palma. The Government spokeswoman, Patricia Plaja, has confirmed this absence after there had been long speculation about the possible reincorporation of Catalonia to these ordinary meetings, to which the Chief Executive has not attended since the times of Carles Puigdemont.

“It makes no sense to participate in a meeting that is not for work but is only for a photo,” the spokeswoman considered. “The agenda is insufficient and no tangible work is going to be carried out for the citizens. This Government is present in all places where important issues for the Catalans are dealt with,” Plaja insisted. The spokeswoman also explained that Aragonès has contacted the Canarian president, Ángel Víctor Torres, to explain the reasons why he will not attend and to inquire about the situation in La Palma after the volcanic eruption.

Aragonès, as Quim Torra already did during his term, has attended the meetings of telematic presidents that President Pedro Sánchez has extraordinary called on different occasions for the management of the pandemic. The last one was on December 23, the date on which the La Palma meeting should have been held, but which ended up being delayed due to the worsening of the health situation.

At the end of last year, the Government opened for the first time to return to the conferences of presidents and the Minister of the Presidency, Laura Vilagrá, and her team came to participate in the preparatory meetings. Catalonia’s requirement was that the agenda of the meeting could deal with the possibility of making a special economic fund available to the autonomies for the effects of COVID. This requirement has not been fulfilled, despite the fact that socialist voices had demanded that Aragonès attend on the grounds that matters such as the distribution of European funds would be discussed in La Palma.

Aragonès and Puigneró, with the king at Mobile

The event that both Aragonès and Vice President Jordi Puigneró will attend is the opening dinner of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), which will be chaired by King Felipe VI next Sunday in Barcelona. This coincidence is nothing new this year, after the head of the Government already coincided with the monarch in the 2021 edition, at that same dinner. “No one will condition the presence of the Government,” Plaja stressed, indicating that the president participates in events that he considers “important for the citizens of Catalonia” and regardless of who attends.



www.eldiario.es