Illa revives the idea of the Winter Olympics (now for 2038)

BarcelonaThe Winter Olympics became a hot potato for Pere Aragonès's government, which Salvador Illa's administration is now willing to rescue. The president of the Generalitat (Catalan government) expressed his "complete agreement" with the proposal made this past weekend by the Minister of Education, Vocational Training and Sports and leader of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) in Aragon, Pilar Alegría, to revive the joint bid to host the Winter Olympics. Isla's willingness to revive the project, which the previous administration ultimately rejected, has already reactivated the opposition of the Stop Olympics platform, which has warned that it will not stand idly by if this commitment materializes.

The proposal Pilar Alegría launched on Saturday is part of her campaign for the 2027 regional elections. In fact, the current Aragonese government, headed by the Popular Party (PP) leader Jorge Azcón, has not verbalized its intention to revive the Olympic project. Instead, Alegría placed this project among her priorities if she were to govern Aragon and used her position as minister to ensure that this hypothetical candidacy would have the support of the Spanish government and the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE). It was precisely this organization that, in June 2022, ruled out the joint candidacy between Catalonia and Aragon to organize the 2030 games in the face of the clash between both governments.

However, Pere Aragonès's executive assured that despite the No of the COE, would present a proposal for a solely Catalan candidacy "when possible." It was not until last year when, In response to questions from ARA, the Government officially renounced organizing these games.The candidacy that Isla should consider with Aragon is now 2038, but sources within the Socialist government avoid giving further details of the president's intentions. This Monday, the president of the ERC (Republican Socialist Workers' Party), Oriol Junqueras, attacked the Aragonese Socialists, accusing them of "making the Winter Olympics impossible" when Lambán was in government: "Now it turns out he wants to make it possible with the president of the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party)." In an interview on TV3, Junqueras avoided taking a position on the project and advocated "gaining consensus" in the region to move forward.

Be that as it may, Stop Olympics has already warned that it will reactivate opposition to the project and call for "massive mobilizations" if the government revives the project to hold Winter Olympics in the Pyrenees. In a statement, the organization considers the attempt to "recover a failed project" that was "rejected by the Pyrenean population" to be "absurd." "This initiative is seen as an attempt to impose a speculative economic model on the Pyrenees," they say.