Aragonès pledges to "shake up the country" to achieve self-determination and social justice

Pere Aragonès is already the 132nd president of the Generalitat to all effects and purposes. After being sworn in by the Parliament last Friday, this Monday he completed the last remaining step: he was sworn in at a ceremony at the Palau de la Generalitat. In his first speech, he made an unequivocal double commitment: to advance towards self-determination and social justice. Thus, he has assumed that his first mission will be to "shake the country" in these two directions.

Aragonès arrived at the headquarters of the Catalan government at 8:15 p.m. accompanied by his wife and daughter. The first thing he did was to leave a flower on the commemorative paving stone in Plaça Sant Jaume to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the execution of President Lluís Companys. It has not been the only tribute to the republican Generalitat of 1931. He has also walked by the area of the Palau where the busts of Companys and Francesc Macià are, two referents for the party that Aragonès represents. The new president also wanted to vindicate the workers who have fought in the front line of the pandemic. In the courtyard of Carruatges he was awaited by essential personnel such as Mossos, nurses, doctors and teachers. In short, the first two pillars of what will be his executive: republican vindication and fight against the ravages left by covid.

What will be the next steps? According to government sources, this Tuesday the composition of the entire Government will be communicated -there are still some doubts about the ownership of certain departments- and on Wednesday there will already be the inauguration of the ministers and the first meeting of the executive council. That same day, 240 days after the Catalan executive took office due to the disqualification of Quim Torra, Catalonia will once again have a fully-fledged Government.

First duties

One of the first duties that the new Catalan president has imposed on himself is to promote an Agreement for Amnesty and Self-Determination. This is a commitment he made during the campaign and is also included in the government agreement between ERC and JxCat. The aim is to bring all the Catalan parties and civil society organisations in favour of these two issues to the same table, and to align them in a single position as a preliminary step to calling on the state to reconvene the dialogue table with the Generalitat on the one hand and the Spanish government on the other. Aragonès himself explained this on Monday in an interview with Rac1.

He has also stated that, before convening the table, he would like to meet with the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. In fact, he explained that he has already exchanged messages with the Spanish president. "It would be logical that we meet before reconvening the negotiating table", he said. In this sense, he said that the European funds to deal with the pandemic and the resolution of the political conflict are the two central axes on which his conversation with Sánchez will pivot.