• • In the first general policy debate of the legislature, the head of the Executive has announced that "from next year the last kindergarten course, the P2, will be free".

• • This measure will be included in the budget bill of law, which, together with the resources already planned for 2022, will allow an increase of more than 3,500m euros compared to the last approved budget "
    
    
  • Pere Aragonès has also said that the creation of a public energy company will allow "to influence all phases of the electricity sector, to be able to define and plan the energy transition model"
    
    
  • He has assured that "there is only one winning strategy, which is to force a negotiation with the Spanish State and, in parallel, to continue working to be more and more and to be stronger."

The President of the Government of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès, opened this afternoon the first general policy debate of the legislature by emphasizing that "the transformation of the country that we promised in the investiture debate and in the constitution of the new Government is already underway". And he explained that to carry out this transformation "the Government always works with a double objective: national liberation, the culmination of the independence of Catalonia and progress and the struggle to improve the quality of life of the Catalan citizens" . "Two sides of the same coin: national freedom and social progress", he reiterated.

This objective includes "the four transformations that the country needs: social, green, feminist and democratic", said the President. And among the changes that are already underway, he highlighted that the commitment to promote free education from 0 to 3 years of age has already begun to be implemented. He announced that "from next year, the last year of kindergarten, P2, will be free" and assured that "this measure will be included in the draft budget bill that we will present in Parliament, and that will allow, together with the resources already planned for 2022 from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism and REACT funds (EU-funded grants to finance new projects in education, health and social services and to support SMEs and the self-employed after the covid-19 crisis) an increase of more than 3,500m euros over the last approved budget ".

Commitment to the completion of independence

Pere Aragonès has linked this transformative will to advance the goal of national liberation. He reiterated his "clear commitment to make possible the culmination of independence", an objective that he considers "inseparable from the struggle for progress, social justice and the improvement of the lives of citizens". And for this, he has assured that "there is only one winning strategy, which is to force a negotiation with the Spanish State and, in parallel, continue working to become stronger and stronger. Adding, adding and adding more Pro-independence sympathizers every day in order to be truly unstoppable".

The President highlighted the fact that "we have sat down the Spanish State to negotiate the resolution of the political conflict over the independence of Catalonia, and this has never been achieved before". For this reason, he called on us to be "ambitious" and "not to waste any opportunity", because "if we are able to achieve our objectives, such as amnesty and self-determination, we will be able to protect all the people who have been repressed and we will give a voice to the citizens of Catalonia so that they can decide their future, which is what we want".

In the same vein, the president noted that "the Catalan delegation represented by the Government at the table represents the whole of society and carries the great consensus of the country". And he added that "the proposal that emerges from the table will be endorsed by the citizens. Everyone is called upon: both pro and non-independence supporters".

The head of the Executive has insisted that "the referendum is the most inclusive proposal that can be put on the table to resolve the political conflict, because we are talking about a democratic, free, legitimate process, where everyone can defend their position on equal terms".

This negotiation process "will not be quick or easy", explained Aragonès, "but it is the best alternative we have in our hands". And he remarked that "that alliance that has made us powerful many times: between institutions, parties, civil society and citizens, will allow us to take the initiative in the negotiations and make our objectives inevitable". 

Economic recovery and Next Generation Fund

On the road to economic recovery in the face of the crisis derived from the pandemic, the president and head of the government insisted on the need to "work to help the most affected sectors" and to "transform Catalonia's production model". In this sense, he said that "we have a great opportunity to do so with the resources from the Next Generation European Funds".

Pere Aragonès claimed that "it is essential that the Government of Catalonia be the one to directly manage the part of the European funds that corresponds to us as a country" and regretted that "the Spanish Government, far from following this path, has taken the right path by presenting the Commission with a recovery plan that the Government of Catalonia is dragging behind". "Ignoring the view of the administrations closest to the needs of the population and the productive fabric, the Spanish government undermined our institutions and the interests of our citizens", he denounced.

In relation to the situation generated by the pandemic and the actions to face its consequences, Pere Aragonès also pointed out that "we have a great challenge: it is essential to increase the percentage of vaccinated population among those between 12 and 39 years old", and he called to do it, because "this is about protecting us all".

 

Creation of a public energy company

The President also pointed out that the transformation of the productive model must be accompanied by "an unpostponable transition towards renewable energies", and stated that he will work to ensure that "the projects of new facilities have the participation of the inhabitants of the towns where they are to be located".

"We have to make a great leap forward. If we don't make this energy transition, they will do it to us from outside and continuing with the extractivist and oligopolistic energy model that has predominated until now", insisted the president. And he has set as main measures within this area "the development of the National Pact for the Energy Transition", which aims to reach 100% renewables in 2050, and the creation "of a public energy company" that has to allow the administration "to influence in all phases of the electricity sector, in order to define and plan the energy transition model".

Menstrual equity strategy

In the area of feminist transformation, the president said that the government will develop, among other measures, the development of a "menstrual equity strategy framed in a national strategy for the guarantee of sexual and reproductive rights". The President noted that access to menstrual hygiene products has an important impact on the economy of women to the point that one in four has to choose between buying these products and other basic products, and they also have an important environmental impact.

For all these reasons, he announced that this same school year a menstrual equity policy will be deployed "distributing free environmental sustainable products in educational centers as well as other groups with women in vulnerable situations", and access to reusable products such as the menstrual cup will be prioritized.

The president has also detailed other actions to be carried out within the feminist transformation such as the "specific line endowed with 21 million euros for the recruitment of women victims of gender violence or who are in a situation of discrimination by place of origin, ethnicity or religion"; the development of the "National Plan to Promote Women's Sport" in coordination with all sports and institutional agents, and the firm will of the Executive "to eradicate" violence against women, "a political issue of the first order for this Government", he said.

Pere Aragonès has also cited other measures such as the decision of the Executive to deploy the law of equal treatment and non-discrimination; the development of the draft bill of democratic memory, and the will to work "to convert the Spanish Police Headquarters of Via Laietana in a center of interpretation of the memory and denunciation of Francoism".

80 million for mental health

In the area of social transformation, the president stressed that mental health care is prioritized and has stated that "we will allocate 80 million euros from the budget to strengthen and transform the mental health network, especially children and youth". "Prioritizing the emotional well-being and mental health of the population is a national objective, an unavoidable priority that we will address by developing and approving the National Pact for Mental Health to achieve recovery and community rehabilitation of affected people", he reiterated .

In this same area, he stressed the Government's commitment to "allocate 25% of the health budget to primary care, so that it really becomes the backbone of the system, as well as to increase and stabilize the current primary care workforce". Likewise, he has set the objective of increasing the public health budget by an additional 5,000 million euros over the next five years.

In terms of housing policies, he highlighted the expansion of the #Reallotgem (We relocated)  program with the aim of stopping imminent evictions by offering a rental contract to the landlord to keep families in their homes. An additional 20 million euros have been allocated to this program. He has also said that "a battery of actions will be deployed to ensure access and permanence to the most vulnerable individuals and families, with measures such as the modification of the protocol of judicial releases or lines of aid to the payment of rent, and the increase of the public housing stock".

National Pact for Language

During his speech, the president also announced that "we will promote the National Pact for the Language" to "revalue this asset as a language of encounter and social cohesion". This pact will pursue "shared objectives, such as ensuring that all citizens in Catalonia are able to understand and speak Catalan and that the Catalan language has a presence in all spheres".

In the same vein, Pere Aragonès pointed out that "it is essential that the new Spanish law on audiovisual communication protects the Catalan language and our audiovisual sector". And he added that "today, the Government has taken the first step to draft the new Catalan audiovisual communication law, updating the regulatory framework in force since 2005, which has been completely outdated". "We are protecting the present and the future of the Catalan language", he concluded.

At different moments of his speech, the head of the Executive has opted for "a new way of governing; agile, efficient, close, disruptive, capable of harnessing all the talent of the country and put it at the service of all citizens". He emphasized that "there are no longer the same old faces at the head of the Government of Catalonia. And this is noticeable. We will not do what we have always done. We are here to make profound changes, to change inertias".

In this line, he called to "abandon the sterile gestures, the tension, the interested polemic, the tacticism, the conservatism hidden behind the 'turn the page', the politics of short flight" and "work together from the consensus so that this country can move forward".