BarcelonaOn November 16, Pere Aragonès will be 42 years old and, since this summer, he has become the youngest ex-president of the Generalitat in the history of Catalonia. What will he do from now on who was also the youngest president? Aragonès has set up its base camp in the North Pavilion of the Palau de Pedralbes in Barcelona. His former president’s office is located there, which he wants to serve to continue the “legacy” of his Government. In fact, he plans to compile in some memoirs the work of the executive that he led for three years. He does not plan, however, to turn this collection into a book just yet.
He arrives there from Pineda de Mar, where he continues to reside, after accompanying his daughter to school, but he often travels a few meters to the Faculty of Economics of the University of Barcelona. There he has resumed the doctoral thesis that he put on hold a few years ago, although he has changed research: he is leaving the Commonwealth behind and will go on to study the industrial policies of the last fifty years in Europe and, specifically, in Catalonia.
It’s only been a week since Aragonès opened the office of ex-president, which is starting to become his own. Among the decoration, mostly austere – as when he was president, without the Spanish flag -, the Miró that he already had in his office when he was Secretary of the Economy, later as Vice-President of the Government and that he also hung in the hall of deputies stands out of the Palau de la Generalitat, where he received institutional visits. Or a French edition of theMysterious Starthe adventure where Tintin travels to the Arctic to explore a mysterious meteorite, or the rocket with which the fictional journalist himself traveled to the Moon.
Now he wants to maintain an institutional and discreet role, in the background. He wants to avoid, for example, the role played by ex-presidents such as Felipe González. Sources in the former president’s office add that he will not participate in the public debate or in the internal life of the parties. After the coup of 12-M, Pere Aragonès appeared to announce that he personally accepted the defeat and departed from the first political line. He will continue to receive four years as ex-president – 435,000 euros until the age of 46 – but then he will lose the allocation until he recovers it when he retires. Looking to the more distant future, Aragonès does not see himself returning to the political forefront. He does not clarify what he wants to do – he will not be a lawyer, his academic training – and his aim is to develop a task that is “compatible” with his figure as former president. Before that, however, he will also be able to devote a little more time to being a father, especially now that in April his wife, Janina Juli, and he will expand the family.
The task as ex-president
The former head of the Catalan executive wants to focus his work as ex-president in three areas. At the outset, take advantage of the international contacts that your Government forged, especially with European institutions, to enhance them and make them available to Catalan institutions. Aragonès also wants to focus on industrial and research policies and continue building alliances with this sector. And, overall, the former president intends to keep alive the “republican policies” of his executive, such as policies in favor of Catalan, but he also does not want to leave the process of open dialogue with the Spanish government in a drawer. However, this process will now be piloted by ERC, which is keeping open negotiations with the Spanish government. Aragonès, of course, will not intervene if the party does not ask him to.
