That the Winter Olympics of 2030 were going to remain in water of borages was seen to come. If the success of Barcelona '92 was largely due to the understanding that existed between the different administrations involved, the failure of these unborn Pyrenees 2030 is explained by the poor harmony that the autonomous governments of Catalonia and Aragon have exhibited during all these months. How to believe in the viability of the project when the partners who had to carry it forward have not stopped arguing from day one and have not even been able to agree on the name? Among the pro-independence politicians, it raised blisters about participating on an equal footing with another autonomous community in an initiative promoted by the central government. Only fear of the reaction of the beneficiary counties prevented them from openly distancing themselves. For now, the ambiguity was comfortable. If things went ahead, fine: the goal was scored. And if not, even better: they got rid of the problem.
But with these tactics you never get anywhere: you can't be saying one thing with a small mouth and another with a big one at the same time, helping with one hand and sabotaging with the other. The unilateralism of the Government of Pere Aragonès, the suspicions of collusion between his representatives and the president of the COE and the consequent suspicions of the Government of Javier Lambán did the rest. Let's take a fresh breath at the Winter Games without formalizing the candidacy! The news was received at the Palau de la Generalitat with poorly concealed relief: one less mess. That at the time of closing the beach bar, the president of the COE, Alejandro Blanco, blamed Javier Lambán for the failure suggests that his suspicions were not totally unfounded. What there is, in the end, can be summed up in one word: failure. Failure for the two governments involved, which have given an image of inflexibility and mismanagement. Failure for the COE, which since Madrid was left without the 2020 Games has not raised its head. And failure, without being blamed for anything, for the residents of the Pyrenean valleys, who have seen how overnight the promises of improvements to their infrastructure vanished. As in the sonnet by Cervantes, “it was and there was nothing”.
Here's the bad news. Now the good. The Aragonese newspapers have spoken these days of Lambán's desire to reestablish a good neighborly relationship with Catalonia and, as a first gesture, he has approved the rehabilitation of the headquarters of the Aragonese Center in Barcelona, called to be "a space for meeting and respect mutual". Well, it doesn't seem that such a decision has to be justified by the fiasco of the Olympic Games, but welcome is that rehabilitation, which the old and noble building on Joaquín Costa street had been demanding for a long time.
A century ago, one in fifteen Barcelonans was of Aragonese origin, and a little later, in 1930, five times more Aragonese lived in Barcelona than in Huesca: Barcelona was by far the second largest city in Aragon. Those were the years of splendor of the institution, documented in the photos of the book that in 2009 commemorated its first centenary: attendance at banquets, public events and various festivals was always massive. The building, made of exposed brick and neo-Mudejar inspiration, with two stone tribunes in the style of the old Renaissance palaces, is an exhibition of the strength of the Aragonese community of Barcelona, and the historic Goya theater, of which she was a regular, is part of it. the company of Margarida Xirgu and in which, for example, Mariana Pineda de Lorca premiered… But those were other times. The golden age of regional houses is long over, and the very concept is anachronistic. Right now, the Aragonese Center has a few hundred members, whose fees were not even enough for basic maintenance works. In the long run, with fewer members and higher costs, the building was condemned to ruin, and its salvation was that the Aragonese Government, as has happened, assumed ownership of the building in exchange for taking charge of its conservation. Fortunately, sometimes some things go well.
