The president of the Catalan Government, Pere Aragonès, has taken stock of the first 71 days of the legislature and has assured that "with little time we have recovered the institutional strength that is an essential step to promote the social, green, feminist and democratic transformation that the country needs to move forward again". "And to face with all the ambition and conviction to the negotiation that we will open from September with the government of the Spanish State, one of the most complex and difficult that we have faced", he reiterated.

In the same vein, the head of the Executive insisted that in this negotiation "we will defend amnesty and self-determination, as requested by a very large majority of the population of Catalonia" and this "requires all of us to work with a clear and unequivocal will to join forces to make them inevitable".

Vaccination is opened from 12 to 15 years of age

The chief of the Executive made this assessment during the press conference following this morning's Government meeting, during which he announced that tomorrow, Wednesday, the vaccination of young people between the ages of 12 and 15 will be opened. "A group of about 300,000 boys and girls who have suffered especially from the isolation measures", he explained, recalling that "we need them to be immunized to facilitate the proper functioning of secondary schools for the next course".

The head of the Executive has called for vaccination of this age group "to start the School year with a greater immunity of all educational centers, but also of the families, thinking especially of the most vulnerable family members". The President of the Catalan Government has placed this initiative as "a step forward" in the vaccination process in Catalonia. At the moment, 58% of the Catalan population is already vaccinated with the full vaccination schedule and 65% have received the first dose.

 

Airport

Pere Aragonès also referred to the agreement reached yesterday to condition the expansion of Barcelona-El Prat airport and stressed that this is a starting point and that "any decision on the airport must be subject to the demands of the European Commission on the preservation of the natural environment and biodiversity, demands that we make our own". "No tricks or subterfuges. It is absolutely essential", he added.

"We want an international airport that works in a network with those of Reus and Girona to maximize the potential of the infrastructures we already have", said Aragonès, adding that "we want and demand that this international airport be compatible with a clean, healthy and safe environment, also in environmental terms".

During his appearance, the president has claimed the transfer of the management of the airport and noted that the debate on the expansion "would have been very different if it had been faced with an airport managed from Catalonia" and that “we could have arrived much earlier to the starting point where we are".

The head of the Government has expressed his willingness to convene the institutional table on the future of the airport during the month of September and that it will be in this framework of dialogue, which includes the affected municipalities and the institutions involved, in which the master plan that should specify the redefinition project of this infrastructure will be designed.

The president explained that yesterday he spoke with the Mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau, and told her that "the agreement reflects the working table on the airport and that we will work on the master plan according to technical criteria". "If her party believes that they can improve it, let them do it from the Council of Ministers, they who are there", he reiterated.

 

"The transfers are not a bargaining chip".

The head of the Government also referred to yesterday's meeting of the bilateral commission Spanish State-Catalan Government and has said that "we value that it has resumed after 3 years, but yesterday's was an insufficient meeting, more debate and more concreteness is needed”. And he assured that "now we will be demanding, we want the pending transfers, but make no mistake, the possible agreements of the bilateral commission are not a bargaining chip that will make us renounce amnesty and self-determination".