Catalunya Media City or the asbestos law: the projects that Salvador Illa is rescuing from the Aragonese government.

Barcelona"We haven't had to change a single comma." The quote is from Salvador Illa last Saturday, when The President of the Generalitat visited the future Catalunya Media City, he hub The audiovisual sector promoted by Pere Aragonès's government, which the Socialist government is determined to maintain without making too many changes. This isn't the only initiative of the Republican government that Illa has given a go-ahead for. In this first half-year of his term, the government has already made it clear that, despite the opposition that the PSC exercised only a year ago in Aragonès's government, it is now willing to recycle some of its projects. This decision allows it to keep ERC, one of its partners, close, even if only to oversee the execution of its projects.

It's evident that when there is a change of government, the new team tries to put its own stamp on the policies it promotes. However, it inherits a management system from which it can decide to distance itself and make a 180-degree turn, or to give it a degree of continuity. The latter scenario is what Salvador Illa's government has chosen. Catalunya Media City hasn't been the only evidence in recent days; the Socialist government also announced this week a plan to reduce head-on collisions on the roads, which will use the 2+1 program devised by Pere Aragonès. "The normal and logical thing is for there to be institutional continuity," point out sources within the Socialist executive. A continuity that they believe is not at odds with the government placing "the emphasis" on its own legislative agenda.

"When Illa acknowledges the work done, it's positive for the country," point out sources from the office of former President Pere Aragonès. In this sense, there is a battery of bills that lapsed last year when Aragonès advanced the elections, but which Salvador Illa has brought back to Parliament. These are the law of democratic memory and the statute of rural municipalities, which were in the final stages of processing. There is also the case of the regulations that should govern the elimination of asbestos, which Salvador Illa also inherited from the Republican government, but whose processing had just begun in Parliament. The case is similar to that of the Film Library law.

The Socialists have also approved the law on the social and solidarity economy and the law regulating the Integrated Social and Health Care Agency of Catalonia, although this law was already passed by previous governments. According to Republican and executive sources, the Catalan government plans to reinstate the previous government's cultural rights law and has agreed with ERC to adopt the law to create a foreign action body promoted by former minister Meritxell Serret. In this case, it was not the Catalan government that brought the initiative to the Catalan parliament, but rather ERC through a bill. This week, the Republicans also publicly demanded that the government adopt the audiovisual law promoted by former vice president Laura Vilagrà, which sought to update the 2005 law.

The final stretch of Aragonès's term was particularly tortuous, seeing how several initiatives... This was the case of the decree regulating seasonal and room rentals. No Junts and the abstention of the Socialists overturned the legislation. The Socialist executive has revived this text and is renegotiating it with the Republicans after agreeing with the Commons on the sanctioning regime. In the area of housing, Isla also agreed with ERC and the Commons to create 50,000 apartments by 2030., but agreements in this area between Republicans and Socialists have been reproduced in recent years: the Republican government had already agreed with the PSC in 2022 to build 10,000 new social rental apartments until 2026.

The agreements of the last Bilateral

Beyond the continuity that Isla has given to certain projects of the Aragonese government, in the last Generalitat-State Bilateral Commission in February, they also materialized some transfers that had already been agreed upon by the previous executive. The increase in Mossos d'Esquadra officers had begun to be negotiated with Joan Ignasi Elena as minister, but the Socialists have finally finalized it and have raised the figure to 25,000 Mossos by 2030. In this last Bilateral Commission, it was also approved to move forward with a consortium that has called.

In fact, it is this agreement that obliges the Government to promote certain policies agreed upon with the Republicans. This is the case of the reduction of personal income tax for incomes under 33,000 euros A few days ago, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Alícia Romero, also announced a measure that appeared in terms similar to the agreement with ERC (the Spanish Nationalist Left)—it was about reducing this tax on incomes under 35,000 euros—and which the Republicans themselves later claimed as an agreement with the Catalan government. The measure, in fact, had already been agreed upon by Esquerra (Republican Left) when it was in government with the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party). Be that as it may, the ERC leadership welcomes Illa's reinstatement of Republican executive projects because it recognizes "the good work done," but they warn that this does not bind them beyond that, that is, it does not "condition" them from approving measures such as the next budget.