Parliament speaker says new social pact with people at center needed to overcome crisis

According to Catalan parliament speaker Roger Torrent, "We will not rise from any crisis without a new social pact that puts life at its center – that puts people at its center."

These words were spoken at a parliamentary event commemorating the 75^th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe with parliament bureau members and the head of the Catalan Association of Former Political Prisoners under Francoism.

Both the current health and ensuing social and economic crisis, as well as the weight of history, were alluded to during Friday's commemoration. "It is precisely during these moments of collective worry that it is worth recognizing the collective efforts of so many men and women before us who, in different struggles, have allowed us to get to where we are now," the parliament speaker stated.

Torrent also used the occasion, which saw him and others place a floral offering at the foot of the monument in Barcelona's Parc de la Ciutadella to the Catalan volunteers who lost their lives in the war, to issue a warning: "Fear is fascism's best ally," he claimed, adding that "more and better democracy" is needed to rise above the ongoing crisis as well as any other one.