The Government of the Generalitat has appointed this Tuesday the biologist Montse Bergés delegate of the Generalitat in Lleida, four days after the disqualification of Bernat Solé, who on Friday received the formal notification of the Supreme Court confirming the sentence of one year of disqualification and the fine of 16,800 euros for a crime of disobedience for organizing the sovereignty referendum on October 1, when he was mayor of Agramunt.
Bergés, until now responsible for the delegate's office, has begun his stage by assuring that Bernat Solé has been disqualified "in a totally unfair and arbitrary way for having allowed the referendum" and has extended his recognition "to all the people exiled and retaliated for fighting for the freedom” of Catalonia. He has thanked "the trust placed in me by my party, ERC, and by the Government of my country".
"I take over this relay with the aim of giving continuity to the projects launched throughout this year and a half that I have been able to work with Bernat Solé" Bergés assured in a statement from the Government Delegation in which he marks himself as objective "to work for the deployment of the Rural Agenda as a tool for the repopulation of our territory, and also to collaborate proactively in the feminist transformation that the Department of Equality and Feminisms is leading".
For his part, Bernat Solé has avoided making statements, this Tuesday arguing to La Vanguardia that "political life is political and from here on it is personal life" and referring to the statements he made in the Delegation on November 18, when he met by the media the decision of the Supreme Court. He then said that nothing he was accused of was different from what most mayors did.
"Let no one be tempted to judge my disqualification as a failure of the dialogue table," he also said in an act attended by the Minister of Foreign Action, Meritxell Serret, representatives of business associations, directors of the regional services of the Generalitat , the president of the Lleida Provincial Council, Joan Talarn, mayors of ERC, of Junts, and Marc Solsona of PDeCAT, who had shared with Bernat Sole's lawyer the arguments with which the Prosecutor's Office had filed the proceedings for his participation in the referendum as Mayor of Mollerussa.
Bergés (Lleida, 1967), the first woman in the Lleida Government Delegation, has a degree in Biological Sciences from Barcelona University, and has developed her professional career in teaching, environmental management and project planning. Before joining the Government Delegation office, she was coordinator of municipal policies in the cabinet of Mayor Miquel Pueyo in Lleida City Council (2019-2021).
From 2003 to 2007 she was the councilor for Commerce, Consumption and Tourism in the Lleida City Council, ERC then governed in the Lleida City Council with the then mayor Antoni Siurana and between 2007 and 2011 she was a member of several administration councils and information commissions of the consistory Lleida as the Municipal Employment Institute (IMO) and the Municipal Urban Planning Company (EMU), among others. Bergés has also worked as a collaborating professor in the field of ICT at the Open University of Catalonia as well as a secondary school teacher in the field of science and mathematics. She has experience as a technician and environmental consultant in energy efficiency projects and the environmental impact of hydraulic works.
