2024-01-01 12:52:58
BarcelonaSince ERC was left alone in the executive, the Government has suffered when it comes to moving forward with its legislative activity, but despite everything, this last year it has managed to complete the processing of fifteen bills -l ‘last, the law of associationism–. The difficulties in the Parliament, where it has only 33 of the 135 deputies, have been evidenced lately with the pact on the edge what the Government reached with the PSC for the tourist flats decree. To these obstacles, others have been added that have complicated the management of the Government. Some of them have even ended up in crisis: the clearest example is that the executive started the year with a water summit and ended it with the opposition demanding one other The drought and also education due to the poor results in the PISA report have been two of the biggest shocks in this first year of the solo government of Pere Aragonès.
The great drought
The drought that has been hitting Catalonia for months has already become one of the executive’s main problems. Since the beginning of the year, the Government has been adopting restrictive and preventive measures that have particularly affected the agricultural sector, but also the industrial sector. The executive, however, also had to convince the opposition so that some measures would see the light of day. The test was in March of last year, when the entire opposition as a bloc forced the executive to process the decree that included several restrictions as a bill. The main point of discrepancy was the tightening of the surveillance that the Government had planned on the water consumed by the municipalities and which involved fines for councils that did not comply. All in all, it ended up leading to a party summit chaired by president Pere Aragonès and the then councilor of Climate Action, Teresa Jordà, which, just before the municipal elections, ended without an agreement.
Since the beginning of the year, Aragonès has been warning that “difficult months” were coming and that “everyone’s efforts” would be needed to face this crisis. The Government thus accelerated work on a new drinking water treatment plant in the Besòs, among other infrastructures. Before the end of the year, and already with David Mascort as the new Climate Action advisor, the executive had to adopt new measures in the face of a situation that has been worsening. Some municipalities will enter an emergency phase and the Government plans to adopt measures such as reducing the ecological flow of rivers and placing the consumption limit at 200 liters per inhabitant in 202 municipalities from the second half of January. In addition, the Government also announced that showers would be closed in gymnasiums and sports grounds that need to water lawns or have swimming pools. This last measure, however, led to criticism from the opposition and public opinion and Mascort had to clarify what he had explained.
The educational crisis
To the severity of the water crisis, one that was already latent has been added: the educational one. The trigger was the PISA report that was made public this December and that had disastrous results for Catalonia. All this led to a storm of criticism of the Government. Among the first reactions of the Ministry of Education was that of the Secretary of Educational Transformation, Ignasi Garcia Plata, who assured that in these results there would have been a problem of “overrepresentation” of immigrant students. Statements that the Government later corrected. Aragonès himself stated: “The PISA report is bad, without excuses.”
To try to thread the needle, the executive convened a party summit a few weeks ago that ended with an agreement on minimums. They agreed to create a commission of experts to draw up a report for the month of February with measures to deal with this crisis, some of which should be applied as early as next year, and others that should be more long term.
The chaos of oppositions
In the midst of these two crises, the Government also had to face the chaos of the oppositions in April, which resulted in hundreds of incidents. The Government decided to start a new fire and repeat the exams in July. The executive received criticism from both the opposition and those affected. “Inadmissible and intolerable situations were experienced. Oppositions are sacred,” admitted at the time the Councilor of the Presidency, Laura Vilagrà, who was most responsible for the chaos. The crisis ended with a dismissal, that of the director general of Public Function, Marta Martorell, but Vilagrà ruled out resigning. The Government also announced the termination of the contract with the company to which the executive had subcontracted the service, Cegos.
Budgets and changes in the Government
Pere Aragonès began last year with a tortuous negotiation to approve this year’s budgets. After a tug-of-war with the PSC over the B-40, the Government finally accepted the work, which is currently still pending the signing of the agreements between the two administrations before starting to develop the project. The result was that Aragonès managed to approve some new accounts – which he has now extended pending how the negotiations with the parties for the 2024 budgets progress. After a few months, the president of the Generalitat materialized his first changes in the Government: he left the then Minister of Territory, Juli Fernàndez, questioned for his opposition to the B-40; and also the one for Education, Josep González Cambray, who had the opposition of the sector, and Teresa Jordà. Aragonès took advantage of the 23-J elections to justify this government crisis and the former Climate Action councilor, for example, placed her as number two on the ERC list.
#crises #government #Pere #Aragonès #face