The new president of the Catalan Association of Municipalities (ACM), Meritxell Budó, has begun her mandate by highlighting that she will be alongside the institutions that "defend the language and civil and political rights" of the country. Budó has also highlighted the desire to increase the number of women over the next four years, especially in town halls and regional councils.
In this sense, the new president recalled that there are currently 27% of women in positions of responsibility and hopes that "there will be many more." All this in the 26th assembly of the entity that was held in Lloret de Mar (Selva) and which also served to provide support to the former president of the ACM, Miquel Buch, recently convicted by the Barcelona Court.
The new government team of the Catalan Association of Municipalities (ACM) is already starting to work. It has four years ahead of it "with a lot of work to do, but with a very high bar" after the mandate of the mayor of Deltebre, Lluís Soler, who has been at the head of the entity since 2019. As of this Friday, the ACM The mayor of La Garriga and former councilor, Meritxell Budó, will lead. "I am very happy to be able to lead this leading entity in municipalism in our country," she said, once she received the rod from Soler.
Budó has made it clear that one of the priority objectives will be to be next to "the country's institutions and always in defense of rights and freedoms." In this sense, Budó has referred to the consultation of November 9 and the referendum of October 1 as examples where municipal institutions "participated" in this defense of rights and freedoms.
Budó has highlighted the work that the former ACM government team has done in recent years and, especially, the management of the effects of covid. "You were together with the town councils and, therefore, with the people," he said.
Another point that Budó has claimed as one of the priorities of his government is the commitment to increase the number of women at the head of municipal institutions such as city councils, regional councils and deputations. The new president of the ACM has acknowledged that it has grown in recent years, but she trusts that "there will be many more."
In relation to this, Budó recalled that she herself will be only the second woman to lead the ACM, after Pilar Blasco, who was at the head of the association from 1999 to 2001. That is why she has claimed the importance of women are increasingly present in these places of responsibility.
The event was chaired by the president of Parliament, Anna Erre, who was in charge of closing the 26th assembly of the Catalan Association of Municipalities. Erre, like Budó and the Secretary of Local Governments and Relations with Arán, David Rodríguez, who also spoke, had words of remembrance for Miquel Buch, who also attended the event.
Erre has described as "brutality" the sentence of the Barcelona Court that sentenced Buch to four and a half years in prison. "We give you all the support and you know that you obviously have us by your side," said Erre, just before all the attendees stood up to applaud the former president of the ACM and former Minister of the Interior, who thanked the visibly moved support.
Erre closed the event by highlighting the importance of the ACM to the local and organizational world and assured that they will "always" have them by their side when they need them.
