After confirming the fiasco of the Olympic candidacy of the Pyrenees for the 2030 Winter Games, all eyes point to one person: the president of Aragon, the socialist Javier Lambán, who both for the Generalitat and for the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE), is the main responsible for the Olympic failure. Although there are nuances.
If from the COE Lambán is seen as the main culprit - its president, Alejandro Blanco, has accused him this Wednesday of lying, breaking the technical agreement and taking the project to the political field - from the Generalitat reproaches are also launched at the central government for not stopping him.
In this sense, the spokeswoman for the Government, Patrícia Plaja, has disgraced the Government of Pedro Sánchez for having allowed Lambán everything. "The Spanish Government has allowed Mr. Lambán everything during these weeks or these months, nobody has called his attention, at least not publicly," lamented Plaja, for whom the central Executive has allowed the Aragonese president to refuse to "team up with Catalunya or at least not to do it with all the conditions that he put that were absolutely unbalanced".
In this way, Plaja, in an interview on the program Cafè d'Idees on La 2, lamented that "whoever has shouted the most and whoever has made the most noise has won this game" and, in his opinion, the neighbors have ended up losing of Aragon and Catalonia. For this reason, he has accused Lambán of being anti-Catalan.
"The Aragonese men and women have lost the opportunity to participate in a winning candidacy because President Lambán has not wanted to team up with Catalonia, because we are Catalans," Plaja summarized, who, however, "does not see anti-Catalanism in the PSOE" .
The spokeswoman for the Government has been embarrassed by the show given by the evolution of the failed candidacy and has recognized that this "unfortunate and painful scenario", which, in her opinion, has been like "a soap opera", "harms the politics". However, Plaja has recalled that the work for a Catalan candidacy for some games "is done", Catalonia "is ready" to organize them and will be sent to the COE. "It will not stay in a drawer," she warned.
In this regard, the president of the COE in another interview in RAC1 has kept the door open to a future candidacy of the Pyrenees. "We have the door open with the IOC and the Pyrenees must necessarily have Games", said Blanco, who acknowledged that "the first door has been eliminated but we have not eliminated the idea". "This project cannot die and we must sit down to talk about the future," insisted the Olympic leader.
Blanco has also admitted that before the International Olympic Committee "we have not done things well because we have taken them where they should never be taken" again holding Lambán responsible, whom he has accused of not respecting the technical agreement, of breaking it and of taking political candidacy. "If we base a project on lies, I can't say anything", he has settled.
Some words that, in a way, have been answered by Lambán himself on his Twitter account. "For defending the interest of Aragon, I am receiving an avalanche of insults and disqualifications from the president of the COE and from the independence movement," Lambán asserted, adding that "the truth is that the Government of Aragon is the only one that sought an agreement until last minute and will continue to do so in the face of 2034".
In addition, he has praised the Catalan position, understanding that if someone has yielded it has been Catalonia while Aragón, in his opinion, "has not understood that this was not a question of having it 50-50. Aragón had 54 tests and Catalonia, 42" . For this reason, Blanco has considered "very hard" that the Spanish Government, Catalonia and the COE maintain a unity and "the other party distances itself."
In any case, Blanco has been in favor of maintaining the consultation that was planned to be held in the affected regions of the Catalan Pyrenees, despite the fact that there is no candidacy for 2030. "We are not in favor of consultations but, given this situation, a consultation should be held to know the opinion of the population", he opined.
