Spanish and Catalan VPs hold ‘fruitful and cordial’ meeting

Only days after what was generally considered a positive first meeting between the new presidents of Spain and Catalonia, on Thursday it was the turn of their deputies, Carmen Calvo and Pere Aragonès. The vice presidents of both governments met in what Spanish government sources described as a “fruitful and cordial” encounter, which served as a forerunner for the bilateral committee meeting set for later this month. 

 

The Catalan vice president was also cautiously positive about the meeting. “There’s a will to speak, something we haven’t had until now, which is therefore positive. So we maintain a certain skepticism, with a bit of optimism that, in speaking, people understand each other,” he said. Aragonès, who is the Catalan treasury minister, also met with the Spanish economy minister, Maria Jesús Montero. 

 

Yet, after two successful meetings with the top officials in both governments, and with a clear willingness to start a dialogue established, the question is what comes next? For Aragonès, the meetings provide “the chance that there can be some opportunity to reach an agreement,” although the vice president also acknowledged that the “fundamental issue” was self-determination, and on that “we are very far apart and we see no chance of agreeing.”

 

In reference to the upcoming bilateral committee meeting between both governments, which will take place for the first time in seven years, Aragonès was hopeful that progress will be made on the issue of the “State’s unfulfilled pledges”, as well as on the issues of reserved powers and the lifting of Spanish government vetoes on different social laws passed by the Catalan Parliament but currently suspended by the Constitutional Court.