The President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès i Garcia, stated today that "the Government of the Generalitat will go all the way in order to identify the most responsible" for the mass espionage against citizens of Catalonia published by the weekly The New Yorker and Citizen Lab. President Aragonès made these statements during an appearance, this afternoon, at the Palau de la Generalitat, accompanied by the Vice President of the Government and Minister of Territory and Digital Policies, Jordi Puigneró, and the rest of the members of the Government, after Citizen Lab made public yesterday through the journalist Ronan Farrow and the New Yorker team that 65 citizens of Catalonia were spied on through the Pegasus program. Citizen Lab is a Canadian laboratory that studies information controls that affect internet security and threaten human rights. "The main victim of Pegasus is democracy itself," said the President of the Generalitat.

During his speech, the chief executive assured that "this case of espionage and the way the State Government faces it can have significant political consequences immediately." He added that "the credibility of the State and the confidence of the citizens of Catalonia with the Government of Spain has been strongly altered." For this reason, he urged the Spanish government to "dispel all doubts and demonstrate its democratic commitment, which today is in serious doubt." Specifically, the chief executive has demanded to initiate as soon as possible an internal investigation with independent supervision to clarify who is responsible, who has ordered actions and under whose supervision and authorization. He has also urged the commission of inquiry to be launched to the Congress of Deputies to clarify their responsibility for these events. Finally, he called for all political and legal responsibilities to be taken into account. "It will not be possible to recover normal political relations with the Spanish state until these elements are given," he said, because "the political conflict with the State will only be resolved with more and better democracy". " Illegally spying on the political opponent is far from resolving the conflict with the state, " he added.

President Aragonès also explained during his appearance before the media that the Government will offer defense, support and legal assistance to all people who have been victims of this espionage case and who are public servants or were when they were spied on. For his part, the President of the Generalitat has stated that he will file a personal complaint "an attack that obviously violates my privacy and my personal and family environment." The last four Presidents of the Generalitat have been spied on with the Pegasus program, as well as the last two Presidents of parliaments, members of the Government, deputies and members of the European Parliament.

For his part, the Vice President of the Government stated during his speech that "we demand that an international and independent investigation be opened to clarify the facts, to determine who is responsible and for them to pay the political and judicial price.". "This Government has agreed not to normalize relations with a repressive state," he added.