The Maragall family demands a "more sincere" apology from ERC to Alzheimer's patients

BarcelonaNo one from ERC has addressed the Maragall family directly to apologize in the last two years. Cristina Maragall, one of the daughters of the former mayor of Barcelona and president of the Generalitat, lamented this Monday that the Esquerra leadership has not requested "a clearer and more sensitive apology to the entire collective [of Alzheimer's patients]" and explained, in statements to BTV, that neither the family nor the foundation have received any message from the party. Sources from ERC explain that this will change immediately once they have closed the internal investigation of the case, the conclusions of which were presented last Saturday to the militants present at the meeting of the party's national council.

This afternoon at the inauguration of the ERC campaign headquarters in Barcelona, the mayoral candidate and secretary general of the republicans said that "the party apologized at the national council" and that they are "facts that shame us all". "The party is managing this apology and I am convinced that it will manage it well," she added.

In July 2024, ARA published the exclusive that the posters that in the 2023 electoral campaign demanded to "drive out Alzheimer's from Barcelona" with the image of Pasqual and Ernest Maragall were a false flag attack, which had come from a group funded by ERC. "Campaigns like this offend all these families and deserve a more sincere and more appropriate apology, frankly," insisted Cristina Maragall, president of the Maragall Foundation.

Last Saturday ERC definitively closed the case by blaming Sergi Sabrià and Marc Colomer, the top communication officials of the party at that time, and by offering public apologies for the harm caused. Since both tore up their Esquerra membership cards, the party cannot sanction them, nor can it sanction the other two individuals investigated in the case, who were qualified as "necessary collaborators".

ERC maintained for years a parallel structure called "the B", which was dedicated, among other things, to criticizing rivals on social media, promoting false flag attacks, and carrying out protest actions on the street or in front of the headquarters of other political parties. The structure was funded with party funds, although the payments were made through another company (Relevance). From this structure came the posters, which sought to improve the image of the mayoral candidate in 2023, Ernest Maragall, who also ended up leaving the party after the scandal was made public.