Turn the page, but to recover the independence unit. Pere Aragonès has celebrated the replacement of Laura Borràs by Anna Erra as president of Parliament as the beginning of a new understanding with Junts. Erra will be appointed on Friday with the support of ERC and Junts and the abstention of the CUP and the president celebrated during his visit to a pilot hydrogen production plant in Fos-sur-mer, Marseille (France) that "an end to to the interim" and has verified that with the new president there is a good opportunity to "rebuild trust and shared decisions among the pro-independence deputies." In fact, the president has hoped to have a working meeting with Erra soon so that the Generalitat and the Parliament get to work 100%.
"The interim period in Parliament must be left behind", Aragonès wanted to remark when asked if he was in favor of suppressing article 25.4 of the Catalan Chamber's regulations, which allowed the temporary disqualification of Laura Borràs for the accusation of prevarication and documentary falsification. "Other debates will be addressed in due course."
However, he has not clarified whether the possible support that the leader of Esquerra in Barcelona, Ernest Maragall, can give to Xavier Trias, from Junts, for him to take over the municipal government will have a counterpart, which could well be the stability that Aragonès claims for his own cabinet in the remainder of the legislature. The president has limited himself to indicating that it is Maragall who has the freedom to negotiate for the Barcelona City Council. "We need the independence movement to be strong at the municipal level and promote the maximum agreement and that the Government of Catalonia has parliamentary stability," he stressed.
The head of the Government has not avoided ruling on the assembly that ERC held yesterday electronically, in which there were critical voices both with the party leadership and with government work. According to Aragonès, his party is determined to achieve the independence of Catalonia, for which he believes "large majorities" are necessary, because "it is a matter of correlation of forces" before the State. For him, he has once again demanded, as he did two Tuesdays in statements after the municipal elections, that the pro-independence formations work to strengthen the Catalan institutions, starting with the municipalities and ending by giving stability to the Executive of the Generalitat.
Aragonès has valued the negotiation process opened with the dialogue table, which, according to what he has said, has borne some fruit. “But I am the first to recognize that they have to generate many more” to move towards a referendum. He recalled that ERC, at the dialogue table with the PSOE government and Unidas Podemos, has commanded the repeal of the crime of sedition and has achieved the "freedom of political prisoners", for example. “Do the next few years have to be much more intense to advance the independence objectives? Yes, ”he acknowledged.
The President of the Generalitat is visiting the region of French Provence and the French Mediterranean Alps today. He plans to participate in a conference on drought in which different regional leaders participate and share strategies in the face of climate change that is especially affecting the Mediterranean shores. In addition, he has visited a pilot plant for the production of green hydrogen in Fos-sur-mer, near Marseille, of the GRT gaz company. In fact, this is where the submarine pipeline between Barcelona and Marseille, known as BarMar or H2Med, must arrive to supply France with this source of energy.
This project was approved by the Portuguese, Spanish and French presidents at the end of last year to replace the MidCat, which had to pass through the Pyrenees with a high construction cost and which encountered some political opposition.
Aragonès also meets today with the president of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, Renaud Muselier, to address the need to promote the Mediterranean macro-region, in addition to collaboration to fight drought. The head of the Government has highlighted that investments are being made in Catalonia to depend less and less on rainwater. And as for the high energy cost involved in the production of hydrogen and taking into account that Catalonia is at the tail of the production of renewable energy, Aragonès has stated that the great challenge is to have enough renewable energy generation to be able to produce the hydrogen. For this, part of the water that is needed will come from desalination and part from reuse.
