The national council that ERC will hold this Saturday has as its main incentive the endorsement of the party leadership for Pere Aragonès to be the candidate for the next parliamentary elections. But at the meeting they are also going to propose changes in the party's executive. Raül Romeva leaves his position to become president of the Irla Foundation, linked to Esquerra. However, as La Vanguardia has been able to learn, the most significant, for its strategic aspect, is the incorporation of the still secretary of Media and Diffusion of the Government, Oriol Duran, into the discipline of the party as vice secretary general of communication and strategy.
The Catalan Cabinet could announce the appointment of a new secretary to replace Duran after the ordinary meeting next Tuesday. In ERC, Oriol Duran will have Cristian Agudo under his leadership in the party, who will assume the Secretary of Communication, a position that no one currently occupies.
With all these changes, ERC tries to strengthen the party communicatively and strategically before the first of the electoral events: the European elections on June 9. The intention of the Republicans is to strengthen themselves, with their sights also set on the Catalan elections, which Pere Aragonès has admitted on several occasions that he intends to call for February 2025, exhausting the legislature. The idea is to face the European elections with everything already defined, without giving the opportunity for any eventuality to catch the Republicans off guard.
In fact, the ERC leadership's endorsement of Aragonès as number one in the Parliamentary elections also serves the purpose of reinforcing the party's strategy. Open speculation for months about a hypothetical fight between the president of the Generalitat and Oriol Junqueras to be the candidate has eroded the Republicans.
Be that as it may, Duran will also have to leave the presidency of the Catalan News Agency (ACN) to become the new deputy secretary general of communication and strategy of Esquerra. A position that has been held until today by Marc Colomer, who had entered the management of ERC just over a year ago, in September 2022, together with the now Minister of Foreign Affairs, Meritxell Serret, and the former mayor of Sabadell Juli Fernàndez. Colomer leaves office for personal reasons and to face new projects.
Duran is an old cat. In the Catalan Executive, he carried out functions in the Department of Foreign Action from 2019 to 2021, until he was appointed in June 2021, with the formation of the Aragonès government, Secretary of Communication of the Government and Mitjans de Comunicació. He led the agreements with Moncloa to reinforce the Catalan language on digital platforms. Previously, he was the press officer for ERC in Madrid, under the command of the then Republican deputy Alfred Bosch. Duran accompanied Bosch when he was appointed councilor at Barcelona City Council in June 2015.
