- President Aragonès today welcomed the Andorran Head of Government, Xavier Espot, to the Palau de la Generalitat
The President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès i Garcia, and the Andorran Head of Government, Xavier Espot, today agreed to create four thematic working groups with the aim of intensifying collaboration in the specific areas of infrastructure, waste management, health and energy. They explained this during a joint press conference after the working meeting held at the Palau de la Generalitat.
“One of today’s main conclusions is that we need to continue to deploy the 2009 framework collaboration agreement through this work plan, which is executed through the different working groups and through this commission on common border challenges that we will start to implement in the coming weeks”, said President Aragonès.
For his part, Xavier Espot stressed that the aim is “to find practical and pragmatic solutions to cross-border issues and to propose concrete answers to citizens’ problems”.
This is the third annual bilateral meeting between the two leaders – following the resumption in June 2021, after 12 years of meetings at the highest level – during which Espot and Aragonès addressed issues of common interest. The last such meeting took place in Andorra in February 2022.
During the working meeting, both governments expressed their willingness to renew or sign new collaboration agreements in the coming months, such as in the area of vocational training. Both parties undertake to promote the exchange and mobility of the respective students to carry out work placements in companies, and to facilitate the exchange of content and experiences and promote joint training actions for vocational training teachers. Other collaboration agreements being worked on include cooperation in fire prevention and firefighting and the exchange of sports infrastructure for the promotion of high-level sport.
“It was essential for both our governments to promote all those areas of collaboration within our reach in the face of the challenges specific to each country, but also of challenges that are common to both”, maintained the President of the Generalitat.
Espot and Aragonès agreed on the importance of cross-border cooperation to make progress in matters of common interest. In this regard, they highlighted the successful implementation of the collaboration agreements signed in recent months on fauna and meteorology, and undertook to continue promoting the Catalan language and to cooperate through the Ramon Llull Foundation.
The head of the Catalan Executive stressed that both governments share “the will to guarantee the linguistic rights of citizens and that, therefore, the language can be used everywhere and to its full extent”. In this regard, he showed his support for process that the Government of Andorra is following to adopt the Andorra Association Agreement with the European Union, which, among other things, will contribute to “making the Catalan language much more present in European institutions”, alongside processes underway for Catalan to gain official status in the European Union.
The Andorran Head of Government and the President of the Generalitat agreed to meet again for a high-level meeting in Andorra in 2024 and reaffirmed their commitment to conduct regular sectoral meetings.
The Andorran delegation sent to the Generalitat today led by Head of Government, Xavier Espot, was made up of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Imma Tor; Andorra’s ambassador to Spain, Vicenç Mateu, the Chief of Staff of the Head of Government, Sílvia Calvó, and the Diplomatic Minister to the Head of Government, Maria Ubach. President Aragonès was accompanied by the Catalan Minister for Foreign Action and European Union, Meritxell Serret, and the Government Delegate to Andorra, Anna Vives.