Pere Aragonès ponders a government crisis beyond the replacement of Minister Teresa Jordà for the 23-J

The composition of the Esquerra Republicana lists for the general elections on July 23 will have lesser or greater consequences for the Catalan government. The inclusion of the Minister for Climate Action, Teresa Jordà, as number two in Barcelona's candidacy for the Congress of Deputies implies her replacement at the head of the Department of the Generalitat, which has the powers in one of the hottest issues today : the fight against drought.

But the unknown is whether the reshuffle in the Cabinet of Pere Aragonès will be limited to the change of ownership in the ministry that also has powers in Food and the Rural Agenda or whether the president will take advantage of the situation to tackle a government crisis with additional replacements.

The head of the Catalan Executive sidestepped the question yesterday with a response similar to the “this is out of the question” that Jordi Pujol used to pronounce when he preferred not to answer journalists' questions: “Everything in its own time”. In statements to the media, Aragonès only praised the ability of Jordà and Gabriel Rufián, nominated again as ERC leader in Madrid, to defend “the rights and freedoms of Catalonia” and “the progressive and independence project” of the party in the Cortes Generales.

The poor results that the Republicans reaped in the municipal elections of May 28, in which they lost 300,000 votes compared to the local elections of 2019, have already aroused speculation about possible surgical changes within the Catalan Executive, a possibility that Aragonès himself commissioned to dispel in his institutional appearance after 28-M. Now, the party's decision that Jordà be one of its main voices in the Lower House, where she was already a deputy between 2011 and 2018, opens up a more real possibility of government renewal.

Future after 23-J

Another of the unknowns is whether this government crisis would take place before or after 23-J. A PP Executive, with or without Vox, coming out of the July general elections would make it extremely difficult for Aragonès to survive to exhaust the nearly two years that remain in his mandate, since, due to his weakness in Parliament, with only 33 deputies de Esquerra of the 135 that make up the plenary session, would be joined by the end of the dialogue table with the central government, one of the banners of the legislature.

One of the first names to appear in the pools is that of the Minister of Education, Josep Gonzàlez-Cambray, the member of the Cabinet who has had the most response on the street, with several strikes by trade unions against his policies.

His Department, moreover, has been at the center of the controversy in two events in which the Generalitat management has presented some errors: that of the minor from Badalona who was the victim of a group sexual assault at the age of 11, and her family recently left the city, and that of the two twins from Sallent (Barcelona) who jumped from their home to commit suicide and one of them died. In the first case, Education took several weeks to communicate to the center where the girl studied the complaint filed by the family in December. In the second, the counseling changed its version of whether the sisters suffered bullying at school just two days after denying that possibility.

Another of the ministers who has aroused the most criticism in the Parliament in recent months has been Joan Ignasi Elena, head of the Interior, who was disapproved by the Chamber in November as a result of the controversial replacements that he ordered at the top of the Mossos d' square. Aragonès, however, ruled out dismissing him and confirmed his confidence in the former member of the PSC.

The president also confirmed in office, less than two months ago, the Minister of Foreign Action, Meritxell Serret, when she was sentenced to a year of disqualification for her role in organizing the 1-O referendum, since the sentence of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia “is not firm”.

When the legislature has just crossed the equator, this would be the second remodeling of the Government led by Aragonès since mid-2021. The first, last October, was forced by the departure of Junts per Catalunya from the Executive, after a consultation with its militancy, as a result of the crisis between the two coalition partners unleashed in September.

So, Aragonès recomposed the puzzle of the monocolor ERC government with the inclusion, in addition, of three independent members with a political past in other parties: Joaquim Nadal (PSC), Carles Campuzano (Convergència Democràtica and PDeCAT) and Gemma Ubasart (Podemos).

Serret, in fact, then also entered the Government of the Generalitat, despite the fact that he was already pending trial for a crime of serious disobedience to the Constitutional Court and the Superior Prosecutor's Office of Catalonia requested, in his indictment, one year of disqualification to hold public office.