The President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, stressed this morning after meeting in the European Parliament with MEPs from Junts, PSC, ERC and Catalunya en Comú Podem and yesterday with President Carles Puigdemont, the importance of "defending the interests of Catalonia to all European institutions, including the European Parliament". The President also highlighted "everything we can contribute at European level, to the challenges facing Europe, which are also ours".

The chief executive has expressed his thanks to these MEPs for "his availability and willingness to work together" and has ensured that these meetings will continue, as "the will is that this relationship will continue".

Pere Aragonès recalled that the meetings he held yesterday and today respond to the commitment he made at the conference he gave on 14 February, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the electoral victory of independence in the parliamentary elections of Catalonia, in which he announced that he would meet with the Catalan MEPs who "defend the consensus that our country has built on language, social cohesion, a political negotiation that will allow a referendum on the independence of Catalonia and also moving towards the end of repression and amnesty".

Speaking to the media at the European Parliament, Pere Aragonès said that with this official trip to Brussels, "we take the opportunity to strengthen Catalonia’s message, defend the country’s social cohesion, the core character of the Catalan language and all the other challenges we have in the economic and social field, which are shared with what are the challenges at European level".

The President also referred to the recent visit to Barcelona by the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, which, he said, was "an excellent opportunity to strengthen our relationship with the European institutions". "The important thing is that the road to recovery has begun and that path will continue," he remarked.

Defense of Catalan

Asked by the media, the president referred to some current issues such as the defense of the model of language immersion in the Catalan school "with the context set by a ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia that goes against any pedagogical criteria", he explained. Aragonès stressed the need to reach an agreement to defend the language and has appealed to political parties to be questioned. "I call on all parties to continue working. What is important is that we must have the broadest possible agreement to defend the Catalan school model and to defend the Catalan language," he has received.

The president has insisted on the fact that he will do "everything in his power" to reach a consensus "as broad as possible" and maintain a model "that allows us to ensure equal opportunities taking into account pedagogical and academic needs with a broad and social consensus".

Regarding the case of spying to pro-independence politicians, the president has stated that he is willing to meet with the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, but has insisted that "we do not want a meeting to hold a meeting" but that there are "three fundamental issues: maximum transparency, assumption of responsibilities and guarantees of non-repeatment". He also noted "the contradiction that three of the MEPs I met with are suffering from a political repression that prevents them from returning to Catalonia, while an emeritus king has his cases closed and given a red carpet".