It must be admitted that Pere Aragonès has not had it easy at all: he became president of the Generalitat after the scourge of the pandemic, with a disconcerted and grumpy country. When it began to subside, the war in Ukraine broke out, inflation, rising fuel prices... The horrible years accumulate, and Aragonès has started one of them. If it is already difficult to govern in this context, added to the president are the difficulties of putting order in the chicken coop of his Government, where every week his partners remind him that the struggle over who is going to lead the Catalonia that emerged from the procès has not ended. Aragonès has opted for political pragmatism towards his partners and opponents and also in his relations with the central government. The final outcome of the pardons of those condemned by the Supreme has a lot to do with that vision, and also his response to the Pegasus crisis: applaud without excesses, be indignant without breaking. And in this context, moreover, he must administer the country. Schools, hospitals, employment. The polls, in this horrible year, do not applaud his management.
Appointed Secretary of Public Health in 2020, Josep Maria Argimon became the face of the fight against covid in Catalonia. With his solid and extensive training and his detailed knowledge of the department, he soon began to appear in the conseller pools. Even the PSC candidate, after leaving the Ministry of Health, Salvador Illa, expressed the idea of having this doctor with a strong technical profile, in contrast to the political character of his predecessor, Alba Vergés.
At the end of the fourth wave, Argimon assumed the most gifted ministry, and the most delicate, with several objectives: to manage the pandemic, the post-pandemic –with its impact on mental health– and configure the health model of the future. Catalonia tried to set its own profile with restrictions that other autonomies did not apply – with some collision with the TSJC – or leading demands in the interterritorial Health Council such as the removal of the mask outdoors and in schools.
In December, the Government approved the Catalan Health Plan 2021-2025, the instrument for all public actions, in order to improve health and quality of life. The problem is money. The CatSalut budget amounts to 10,798 million (14.2% more than the previous one), but Argimon tirelessly demands that the State continue to inject covid funds. The pandemic is not over, he argues, and all the activity that has been postponed must be recovered. / A. Lopez Tovar
The first year of the legislature has not been characterized by frenetic legislative activity in Parliament. If in 2021, after the long negotiations for the investiture, only two laws were approved, with the in extremis support of the commons, the one on budgets and the one on fiscal, financial, administrative and public sector measures, both on December 29 , this 2022 seven more laws have been validated, but six of them are mere modifications of existing regulations, such as the one aimed at dealing with the housing emergency in Catalonia, approved on March 3.
The only text that does not perfect a previous rule is the one referring to the complementary risk fund of the Generalitat de Catalunya, created in order to cover the bail imposed by the Court of Auditors on several former senior officials and officials for their participation in internationalization of the procés and that repealed a previous decree law.
This chapter of the decree laws has been the most productive. The Parliament has validated four of the five that the Government has sent so far this year and approved 28 in all of 2021, although ten of them were not voted in full but signed by the permanent deputation of the Chamber, which was dissolved for the election call. To them are added the five projects and 20 propositions of law and the seven popular legislative initiatives in process, of a very diverse nature. / Julio Hurtado
The unexpected war in Ukraine with the impact on inflation caused the Catalan economy to stagnate in the first quarter, in line with what happened in the rest of Europe, thus moving the moment of recovery from the pre-pandemic level to 2023. Catalonia grew by 0.1% quarter-on-quarter and 6.4% year-on-year. The first Government of Pere Aragonès managed to carry out some budgets for this year in a year in which it did not rush all the spending allowed by the State. It ended 2021 with a deficit of 0.33% when the maximum allowed by the Government was 1.1%. The Department of Economy justifies a lower deficit than allowed (and, therefore, lower public spending) in an accounting change introduced by the State at the last moment. Without this modification, he maintains that the deficit would have been 0.9%. Even then I could have spent more. In the second year of the pandemic, the Govern de Aragonès contained real health spending (deserved) compared to the previous year, since it only grew by 4.1% in 2021, compared to 19.3% the previous year. Covid-specific health spending fell by 3.9%. Even so, the Government maintains that it is the autonomy that has put the most aid on the table to fight the pandemic: 2,340 million euros. As for the Next Generation funds, the Government has already executed 27.4% of the resources that correspond to it. The Department of the Economy regrets that they do not arrive quickly enough and demands a larger item. / Eduardo Magallon
The delays in the constitution of the Agència de la Natura or the insufficient generation of income with the tax on CO2 from cars (tax to finance protected areas) weaken the Government's alleged commitment to conservation policies. Dragged by the anti-wind platforms, ERC promoted the modification of the decree for the implementation of renewables, but it remains to be seen if that will make clean energies take off and if a "decentralized and participatory model" makes its way to make up for lost time. Support for the Tramuntana offshore wind farm does mark a change.
The Minister Teresa Jordà resisted the "blackmail" (as she called it) of Aena in the attempt to expand the airport in natural areas of the Llobregat delta under the tutelage of the EU. She recalled that the insufficient protection of the space must be resolved and the EU file must be answered. However, the Government runs into obstacles from the agricultural world to delimit new protection zones for birds in the delta while Aena still has to renaturalise the natural spaces of the Natura 2000 Network that it paved. The ambition of the draft of the Waste Prevention Law marks a milestone; but it is necessary to really bet on the return of packaging. However, the slam of the environmentalists who demand an ecological flow for the Siurana (the dry river) could bear the signature of any Conselleria d'Agricultura of a lifetime. / Antonio Cerrillo
This –strange, exhausting– year of legislature cannot be understood without dwelling on the arrival of a new head of Education. Josep Gonzàlez-Cambray came to the position to "make things happen" and achieved a good budget. He liquidated all the general directors of Josep Bargalló, his former colleagues, and enthusiastically created the secretariat of Educational Transformation. His good wishes to take a rigid and slow system towards a horizon of innovation and equity collided with reality: the VT crisis and the management of the pandemic, which generated uncertainty, tension, confusion and fatigue. Despite this, the Minister continued with his plans. For this reason, the announcement, in February, of the advancement of the school calendar set fire to the educational community, angry at the lack of prior consensus and the complexity of its implementation. Unions, directors, families, pedagogues and municipalities went on a war footing. He denies lack of dialogue and brandishes his achievements: the gratuity of P2 and the ratios in P3. But the five days of September have become six days of strike and have left him without support to undertake important reforms (such as the curriculum). And, above all, to face one of the country's greatest challenges: the ruling of the TSJC on the 25% of Castilian, firm since December. The repeated reproaches to the judges (“this is not about percentages”) do not obviate a certain inaction to protect what he expresses to defend: Catalan in the classroom and the safety of teachers. / Carina Farreras
A year ago, Catalonia gave equality policies a ministerial rank for the first time, a gesture in keeping with the will expressed, on paper, by the president to build a "feminist country". With Tània Verge at the helm, the new department has been quickly armed with a structure that draws on activism. Verge presented this week the campaign on menstruation in schools, with delivery of menstrual cups, and also opened training on LGTBI diversity in the workplace. The campaign against the aesthetic pressure suffered by women has been launched, the equal treatment and non-discrimination office has been created and progress is being made in the presentation of the Trans Law and the Anti-Racist Law. But the focus of the gaze must always be placed on sexist violence. Five women and one girl have been murdered by their partners in 2022, one of the worst figures in recent years. It is obviously not a problem attributable to the ministry, but it is the place to focus the main effort of public policy.
Since January, the Ministry of Equality and Feminism has assumed the reception policy for Ukrainian refugees. Catalonia, one of the main points of arrival, begins to refer refugees to other communities. This newly created department has opened space. Now you must sail on the high seas. / Cristina Sen
The El Prat airport expansion plan, put on the table by Aena, was the first big difference between the government partners. While at ERC the preservation of natural spaces prevailed, Junts defended economic development. The pressures from both sides were very intense and strained relations between ministers who had not yet had time to meet. The obvious discrepancies expressed in public and in private ended up leading the Ministry of Transport to postpone the promised 1,700 million euros of investment. They gave themselves five years to work on a consensus project, but almost one has passed and no one has moved from where they were. They tiptoe around the issue, unlike Rodalies, against whom Jordi Puigneró charges whenever he can due to lack of investment, although a powerful plan is being executed with actions that will improve the reliability of the service in the coming years. It is the only aspect of Territori's vast portfolio on which the vice-president, who is much more active in the field of digital policies, precedes infrastructures in the name of the department and in his order of priorities, usually makes a pronouncement. The Puigneró team has made the most progress in restarting the works on the central section of the L9 metro, whose tunnel boring machine is beginning to turn timidly. The final deployment of the T-Mobilitat, on the other hand, continues to accumulate delays. / David Guerrero
The reception program for applicants for international protection is the responsibility of the state, but in the case of the massive arrival of Ukrainians, the involvement of all administrations has been sought. The European temporary protection directive, approved shortly after the Russian invasion, establishes that, unlike what happens with other nationalities fleeing armed conflicts, Ukrainians must be automatically processed for residence and work permits, in addition to facilitate their access to education, health and social services. But never before have so many displaced people arrived in such a short time, and sometimes the system's ability to react has not been as agile as that of the citizenry. The Secretary of Equality counts 21,181 Ukrainians, most of them women with their children, of whom so far more than 7,000 have obtained the health card, 4,413 children and young people have started school and the Treball offices have registered 1,015 registered. The urgency is to offer housing alternatives. Now, 5,000 people spend the night in hotels and shelters and the rest have been taken in by families or have altruistically given flats to them. As the Comissió Catalana d'Ajuda al Refugiat points out, the great challenge is to solve accommodation and find ways out so that those who have resources can rent even if they do not prove work contracts. / Rosa Maria Bosch
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