In September, Pere Aragonès announced that he was renouncing his salary as ex-president to take over the family's hotel chain. At that time, he also explained that he would combine this task with his doctoral thesis at the University of Barcelona and also with teaching at the University of Vic.

"In this new phase, we do not think a Catalan unity government is convenient. We must consolidate the institutions and accustom the country to the presidency of the Generalitat, but the time has come to govern". He probably did not imagine he would do so for 23 consecutive years, but the day after the 1980 elections, a triumphant Jordi Pujol was already beginning to envision that his main mission should be the creation of autonomous Catalonia. This year marks 46 years since Pujol was invested president, and it so happens that he has now been out of government for as many years as he spent at the head of the Generalitat.

The Orriols surname has become increasingly popular in Catalan politics since the mayor of Ripoll came to power with a fiery speech against immigration and against other pro-independence parties. She is one of the founders of Aliança Catalana, the far-right party that is gaining the most in polls, especially at the expense of Junts. But there is also an Orriols who precisely represents Carles Puigdemont's formation: Irina Orriols, the sister. She is a councilor in Sora, a small town of just over 200 inhabitants in the Osona region, bordering Ripollès. The political origin of the two sisters is the same, the Front Nacional de Catalunya. In fact, they ran together in 2019 in Ripoll, with Sílvia as the lead candidate and Irina in a symbolic number 9, to accompany her sister. But in 2023 they chose different paths and, in Sora, Irina Orriols was the fourth most voted councilor when she represented Junts with the open list system.

Spanish President Pedro Sánchez is deeply dividing Catalan political identity today. In the post-independence era, without a pro-independence majority, the big question is what to do with the Spanish government: whether to block it or negotiate with it. Without any criticism of their past actions, former Catalan presidents José Montilla, Artur Mas, Carles Puigdemont, and Pere Aragonès clashed over Sánchez and unity in a colloquium on Catalan identity this Thursday. Because they quickly reached an agreement on Catalan identity in theory, but when it comes to putting it into practice, everything changes.

Oriol Junqueras made it official on Tuesday his intention to run as a candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat And a few hours later, some voices emerged that did not share this decision. The most forceful, that of Former minister Ernest Maragall, who stated that he would not vote for himThis Friday, former Catalan president Pere Aragonès avoided clarifying whether he will vote for Junqueras as the ERC candidate in the upcoming Catalan elections. The former Republican leader recalled that a primary process must first be opened within the party, adding: "I will not take a position in the internal debate." In an interview on RTVE, Aragonès did defend Junqueras' right to run and once again demanded that the amnesty law be applied to him—the president of Esquerra remains disqualified and awaits a ruling on his appeal for protection in the Constitutional Court.

This morning brought us an announcement: Pere Aragonès is leaving politics. He announced that He will give up his former president's salary and will work for his family's company., who is known to have businesses related to tourism, and will begin teaching at the University of Vic.

Just over a year after losing the presidency of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès is giving up his former president's salary to work for the family business. Back in May, in an interview in the ARAThe former president stated that he had plans for his future that did not involve politics. He ruled out practicing law—he has a law degree—and has finally opted for the family business, a hotel chain based in Pineda de Mar, Golden Hotels. He will combine this with his doctoral thesis, which he resumed at the University of Barcelona a few months ago, and with teaching at the University of Vic, where he will teach economic history. Aragonés will not receive the annual allowance he earned as former president—approximately €108,000—but will retain the office he had set up in the North Pavilion of the Palau de Pedralbes in Barcelona.

The time to move forward with the agreement on financing that will allow Catalonia to collect all its taxes is approaching. It was an essential element for the investiture of President Salvador Illa, but the political situation, with the corruption scandal affecting the PSOE, is complicating matters. And although work to implement the model was at an advanced stage, the June 30th deadline is moving further away, several sources consulted admit. The challenge now is, if the legislature holds out, to present the image that work on the new financing model continues. The time has come, but the clock has stopped.

Pere Aragonès (Pineda de Mar, 1982), former president of the Generalitat (Catalan government), visits the ARA the week that marks a year since the Catalan elections were brought forward and ERC lost the presidency of the Catalan government.

The conflict that had been brewing for months, secretly, exploded just hours after the defeat in the 12-M elections. Pere Aragonès accepted the defeat and announced that he was stepping back, while the then and now president of the party, Oriol Junqueras, took the opposite step: a step forward to continue leading the Republican party. The tandem that had led the Ministry of Economy during the 1-O election broke up, as did the duo that had led ERC for the last eleven years: Marta Rovira also announced her retirement. The Republicans plunged into one of the toughest wars the party has ever experienced, which dragged on and worsened after ARA published the scandal of the posters against the MaragallsWhere are the three visible faces of the party at that time now? What relationship do they have after the war? Has the party recovered after the battle?

It will soon be a year since the Catalan elections that turned the political landscape on its head and, arguably, dealt the final blow to the Process. Pere Aragonès brought forward the elections due to the lack of support for approving the budget in Parliament. But this was not a resignation. The then president of the Generalitat believed—and had been encouraged to believe— that this could be the best time to call the country to the polls. The best moment for ERC, of course.

"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.

Former President Pere Aragonès and his wife, Janina Juli, have become parents for the second time, they announced on Instagram last night. Aragonés shared the first image of the new member of the family, Pol. "Pol arrived this afternoon full of health and strength. Both he and his mother are feeling very, very well. And the whole family is immensely happy," they explained in their post on the social network.

Pere Aragonès has defended at Yale University in the United States, the process of dialogue and negotiation that ERC and its Government opened with the State. In fact, he described the strategy as a "great success", although he also admitted that it has entailed electoral "costs" for his party. "If you look at it from an electoral point of view, it has had a cost, but if you look at the whole process, what conditions we were in five years ago and what conditions we have now, it has been a great success. I think this depends on the negotiation process," he said in a conference entitled Negotiation in Secessionist Conflicts: Lessons from Catalonia which he gave this morning from Yale, to which he was invited as one of the experts in "conflict de-escalation".

Yale University, one of the oldest universities in the United States, has invited Pere Aragonès to an event on "negotiation in secessionist conflicts" and the "lessons" of the Catalan case. As explained in the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs website, which is part of the university, the former president will host a "conversation" on "the role of political leadership in the de-escalation of secessionist conflicts and the restoration of stability."

Josep Pallach's mark on Catalan politics was so deep that this is the only way to explain the presentation of the biography written by Joan Safont, Josep Pallach, politics and pedagogy (Pòrtic), which brought together in the same space, the Jaimes bookstore in Barcelona, ​​​​the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, the president of the Parliament, Josep Rull, and the former presidents Pujol and Aragonès. A reference for each of the three central political families of current Catalan politics. "The pallaquista gene exists," proclaimed Safont to describe a way of doing politics based on dialogue, tolerance and pragmatism.

Does the case of Laura Borràs have anything to do with the Trial? No. At least, not directly. Does the sentence that the Supreme Court has now confirmed have anything to do with the ideology of the convicted woman? Yes, of course. The Spanish justice system has made it easy for us to affirm this: almost all the judicial bodies that have decided on separatists have shown a bias of the last trench of the unity of Spain that makes it common sense to affirm that regarding a notorious separatist, such as Laura Borràs, it will be difficult for justice to act with the required impartiality.

There are fifteen days left before the ultimatum Together for Catalonia (JxCat) gave its coalition partner Republican Left of Catalonia to redirect the course of the Government elapses, and negotiations to save the coalition are underway. This Wednesday, as reported by El Periódico and confirmed by the ARA, Catalan president Pere Aragonès (ERC) met with JxCat's president and secretary general, Laura Borràs and Jordi Turull, to discuss the coalition's continuity. On the table there are three proposals from JxCat: recovering meetings between parties and pro-independence organisations to weave together a unitary strategy; to coordinate parliamentary groups in the Spanish parliament; and making the negotiating table really about amnesty and self-determination. The deadline to reach a pact is the general policy debate –which begins on September 27–, since it is there that an eventual agreement between the two coalition partners can take shape in order to continue their joint path or, on the contrary, a definitive split will be revealed.

If anyone thought that the escalation of reproaches between the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and political parties –basically Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC)– would moderate during Catalonia Day, they will have been completely wrong. The most tense September 11th within the pro-independence movement has ended with a direct threat from the ANC to the Government: "Either independence or elections", its president, Dolors Feliu, demanded in front of thousands of people who demanded the Catalan government resign. The break between parties and institutions and part of pro-independence civil society has reached its highest point this Sunday, but for days now such an outcome could be foretold. Without Catalan president Pere Aragonès present nor any other representative of the ERC leadership at the ANC demonstration –Carme Forcadell was there as former president of the organisation– Feliu was critical of those who try to stop the mobilisations: "They are trying to make us few, to stop us from being heard, but we will not be silenced!"

Negotiating table will return in the last week of July. This has been agreed by Catalan president Pere Aragonès his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sánchez in the meeting they held this afternoon at the Spanish presidential palace for an hour and three quarters. The two delegations will meet again ten months after the negotiations were resumed, at a meeting at the Palau de la Generalitat on September 15th. That day the two presidents met face to face and, subsequently, the meeting on the dialogue table was held, the first since Aragonès became president of the Generalitat. This time it will be held in Madrid.