Postponing the vote until autumn due to the “uncertainty” of the project due to the lack of agreement with Aragón

The Government has decided to postpone until autumn the double consultation on the candidacy for the 2030 Winter Olympics in the Catalan Pyrenees scheduled for July 24.

It was announced by the Minister of the Presidency, Laura Vilagrà, at a press conference this Friday after meeting the regional table of the Olympic project to communicate this decision to the mayors of the affected territories.

Vilagrà explained that the Government has decided to postpone the consultation due to the “uncertainty” of the candidacy due to the lack of agreement with the Government of Aragon and has argued that citizens need to have all the information to vote and be able to decide on this project.

The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, planned to sign the decree calling the consultation this Friday, but the uncertainty about how the candidacy will end up being defined has caused the postponement of the vote.

On Monday, a meeting between the Generalitat, the Government of Aragon and the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE) ended again without an agreement, for which the sports body warned that it would present its own proposal and Vilagrà has asked for “speed” to close the candidacy .

Faced with this situation, the Councilor for the Presidency has defended that not all the information is available on what disciplines will be held in Catalonia, and for this reason she considers that the candidacy proposal must first be defined and, once closed, the double consultation will be convened so that citizens can decide on the project.

He has indicated that, as the month of August is not a working month, the consultation will already be held in the autumn “as soon as possible”, and has reiterated that it will be binding to decide if the Government ends up formalizing the candidacy.

Once the proposal is defined, the Government will reactivate the decree calling for the consultation that they had already prepared and will resume all the voting procedures that have now been paralyzed.

Vilagrà has claimed that the Generalitat has never left the candidacy negotiation process and has respected the agreement on the distribution of disciplines between Catalonia and Aragón reached by all the parties in the technical commission, but has accused the Government of Javier Lambán of having broken that pact “based on political criteria”.

“It causes us absolute perplexity that the intransigent positions of one party have boycotted this project”, he has recriminated, and has defended that the Government does not renounce these Olympic Games and will continue in talks with the COE and Aragón to push forward a proposal that is good for Catalonia and based on technical criteria so that the candidacy is competitive.

“STUDY ALL THE ALTERNATIVES”

He has also insisted that Catalonia is prepared and maintains its willingness to host the Olympic Games, and has called on the COE to “study all possible alternatives”.

In this sense, and when asked if the candidacy could only be from Catalonia, she replied that they are willing to collaborate with other territories and that there be a “coherent” proposal, but that they are available to the COE for any option if they do not know reaches an agreement with Aragon.

The councilor has maintained that Catalonia has the capacity from an organizational and sporting point of view to host these Olympic Games with guarantees: “Catalonia’s potential is evident to host some Olympic Games. We have earned this position and it is fair that we have this candidacy. We don’t want anyone to torpedo it and not allow this option”.

Asked if one option would be to present the candidacy for the 2034 Winter Olympics and not 2030, Vilagrà has rejected it, since he assures that they are still betting on presenting it for 2030 and believes that there is “enough time” to do so because, according to her, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will decide the venue in May of next year.

In addition to communicating the decision to the mayors, Vilagrà also informed the vice-president of the Generalitat, Jordi Puigneró, and the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Sànchez, in addition to the CUP, on Thursday of the postponement of the consultation.