The first secretary of the PSC and head of the opposition in Catalonia, Salvador Illa, will begin a two-day trip to Brussels next Wednesday, October 26, to meet with three European Social Democratic commissioners, after the president of the Government, Pere Aragonès, has moved this week to the European capital to hold two meetings with two other commissioners, Justice, Didier Reynders, and Internal Market, Thierry Breton.
With this trip, Illa wants to replicate the president's agenda this week in Brussels, where she has met with Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders and Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton. With these meetings, the Generalitat wants to recover the weight it lost in the European institutions as a result of the procés. In fact, Aragonès recovers with this trip some contacts practically lost since 2015, when Artur Mas was the last president who traveled to Brussels to meet with a member of the European Commission.
The leader of the PSC will meet on Wednesday with three commissioners from the social democratic family, the European Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, and on Thursday he will meet with the Vice President and Commissioner for International Relations and Foresight, Maroš Šefčovič, and with the Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira.
Illa, who will come to Brussels accompanied by the spokesperson for the PSC-Units in Parliament, Alícia Romero, the socialist MEP Javi López and the PSC's secretary for European and International Policy, Laura Ballarín, will complete her agenda in Brussels with meetings with the president from the Special Committee of the European Parliament on the coronavirus pandemic, Kathleen van Brempt; with the president of Group S
The trip will end on Thursday, so Illa will be back to meet with Aragonès, presumably on Friday. It is an appointment that in principle should take place this week, according to the socialist leader, but postponed by the president's agenda in Brussels. In this meeting, the head of the Government and the opposition will analyze the new political scenario after the departure of Junts from the Executive, in particular, the options on a possible agreement to approve the next budgets of the Generalitat.
The positions on this seem entrenched. Aragonès insists on carrying out the accounts with Junts, the commons and the CUP, a highly unlikely arithmetic in light of the refusal of the post-convergents. Instead, the PSC has lent itself for weeks to negotiate an agreement that ERC strategically resents, giving rise to an extension of the current accounts, at least for a few weeks.
Illa's will be the second trip to Brussels that he has made in this legislature. In November 2021, shortly before being officially elected first secretary of the party to replace Miquel Iceta, he visited the institutions of the European Union to meet with the former Italian prime minister and former national secretary of the Democratic Party, Enrico Letta, and with the commissioners for Labor and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmidt and for Health and Food Safety, Stella Kyriakides.
