The first wine they bring you to try is a Riesling. By name, Ekam. Raül Bobet, the owner of the Castell d'Encús winery in Talarn, explained to the President of the Generalitat that Ekam in Sanskrit means unity. He does not go second. At least his rictus doesn't give clues. “We Catalans need to close ranks. We are not good at closing ranks, ”he says minutes later. He doesn't talk about politics either, but about the world of oenology. "Since the 15th century, we Catalans have gone from civil war to civil war and we always find the moment to shoot the person next to us", corroborates Pere Aragonès.
It is in the region of Pallars Jussà. The following day, on Saturday, he visits the last county he has left to step on since he is president: Alta Ribagorça. It is the least populated in Catalonia, with about 4,000 inhabitants, no legacy. Therefore, it will have been in the 42 counties. They will be 43 when the recent creation of Lluçanès is published in the Official Journal of the Generalitat of Catalonia (DOGC).
–Are you expressly delaying the official status of Lluçanès to give them credit for having been in all the regions?
-No! I sign the law, but the jurists of the Parliament always look at it twenty times.
You got the joke.
This Friday and Saturday, the Republican has been in the Pyrenean regions of Pallars Jussà, Pallars Sobirà, Alta Ribagorça and Val d'Aran. In a context of drought, but with the political unity – social, not independenceist – of the Parliament under the arm, with the urgent measures against the water shortage agreed.
"Citizens in this area are concerned, not so much with drinking water, but with water for extensive livestock farming and the resulting fires," says the president. He has sat three times around a table with mayors and mayors of the first three counties. The last one was a breakfast, with those from Vilaller, Vall de Boí and El Pont de Suert, the three municipalities of Alta Ribagorça. The Escales reservoir is at 37% of its capacity. The management of the reservoir does not depend on the Generalitat, but the 50 million euros that the Government will allocate in economic aid will be available to the municipalities of the "whole of Catalonia". No distinctions.
Everything indicates that the call to request them will be sooner rather than later and the mayor of Tremp, Maria Pilar Cases, is one of the first to request them, at an ERC rally in the city on Friday. Aragonès takes a break during his institutional visit and puts on his match jacket. They give him a honk. But in general he is well received: in Sort, Rialp, Talarn, El Pont de Suert, Taüll, Salardú.
The most grateful are the elderly. In Talarn they change the “botifler!” that he has heard in places with more demographic weight by an “Oh, how handsome he is! Au, nenom al casal ”. "It is", not "is". It's hot at the residence for her and they show her that they are well informed: "Now that you're starting to put air conditioners in the schools, let's see if you put them here!" Laughter, with the rummikub waiting and Robert Reford watching from the television screen, of a movie broadcast on channel Thirteen, of the Episcopal Conference. Next door is the village women's association. They sew. "If my mother saw it, she would stay," says the president.
The photos with people from the towns and authorities are de rigueur and obligatory. In Aragonès, in almost all of them, the index finger of the right hand is grasped with the index finger and thumb of the left. And he puts a foot forward. On Friday, always the right; on Saturday, the left. Phenomenon with no possible explanation, if not that the president hides from Anna, Dolors, Marta and Arnau, the press and protocol team that accompanies him these days, a possible overload on the hip.
In Taüll he is received by authorities and townspeople. The Romanesque churches of Sant Climent and Santa Maria are 900 years old since they were consecrated. Before entering the first, Leonor stops the president and shows him a black and white photo. They appear before her church, her, her father, and Joan Coromines, the philologist, who settled in Pineda de Mar for the last thirty years of his life. It is where Aragonès resides.
He reminds the press that the budgets provide for an investment to expand the Pallars hospital, in addition to the project to carry out the Alt Urgell hospital and "investments to gradually adapt the mountain stations to all the climatic evolution that we are suffering", such as Boí-Taull. Be careful, it says mountain station, not ski.
Sergi Sebastià, from the company that bears his last name, specialized in wood and prefabricated buildings with low energy consumption, also talks about drought. Rialp's company has spent three million euros on a sawmill for plywood.
They ask for funds. Wherever he goes they ask for them. Without exception. On Saturday night he returns to Pineda with a handful of notes on his cell phone. The hustle and bustle of these issues and the multiple visits make him almost leave El Pont de Suert with the key to the hotel room where he has stayed.
