The electoral calendar imposes new rules on the political game and alters the relations between the Government and the Generalitat. The photos with gestures of complicity and handshakes go to the drawer until the municipal elections pass and the meetings in the shadows make their way, without official calls and without spotlights. The Catalan government insists that “there is no normality” in the relationship it maintains with the Executive of Pedro Sánchez, but that it is necessary to hold recurring meetings to address work issues that involve the two administrations. Within the framework of the new context, President Aragonès and the Minister of the Presidency Félix Bolaños held a meeting in Barcelona on Thursday to address ordinary management issues between the two governments. “It was a private meeting and he was left with that he was not going to explain himself,” sources from the Generalitat point out, to argue the reservations with which the appointment passed. Just this week, the spokesperson for the Catalan government, Patrícia Plaja, made a statement showing that the Generalitat takes it for granted that in the coming months there will be no new meeting of the dialogue table between the Generalitat and the Government. “Institutional normality”, responds La Moncloa.
The meeting this Thursday between Bolaños and Aragonès, anticipated by The vanguard, was produced taking advantage of a visit by the minister to Barcelona. The Government does not give details of a meeting that was held far from the Palau de la Generalitat and that lasted just over an hour. “There was nothing to announce”, they refer from the Generalitat, to argue the discretion with which the appointment passed. “We have to have a relationship, because there are issues that have to be dealt with, but there is no normal relationship between the two governments,” says those around Aragonès.
The government spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, stated in an interview on RTVE that there is currently a “normalization relationship” between the administrations. La Moncloa already insists that the meeting is yet another proof that “institutional normality” has also been recovered in the relationship between administrations. The Executive thus specifies that no agreement or concrete measure has been closed.
Esquerra has found in the PSC an essential ally to approve the budgets of the Generalitat for 2023, but to give their approval to the accounts the Catalan socialists have put on the table a list of demands in terms of infrastructure. In some cases, these are issues that have shared management, such as the Barcelona orbital motorway, the B-40, or the project to increase traffic at El Prat airport. The meeting between Aragonès and Bolaños served to begin to lay the foundations for how these issues should be addressed. On the other hand, there was hardly any talk about the scenario that leaves the judicial setback that several charges from Esquerra Republicana have recently received. Despite the modification of the Criminal Code, the Supreme Court has decided to keep Oriol Junqueras disqualified until 2031 and the Prosecutor’s Office has made public that it requests seven years in prison for Josep Maria Jové and six years for Lluís Salvadó, senior leaders of ERC, for the 1-O.
On Monday, the spokeswoman for the Generalitat said that “the political context does not help” to be able to carry out certain scenes between governments. Barely three days later, Aragonès and Bolaños gave proof of this, meeting with undisguised concealment.
You can follow EL PAÍS Catalunya at Facebook and Twitteror sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter
What affects the most is what happens closer. To not miss anything, subscribe.
subscribe
#Government #Generalitat #change #dialogue #table #discreet #bilateral #meetings