ERC and Junts blame central government and Aragon for failed Spanish candidacy, which will not be run by Catalonia alone
Final chapter of the soap opera of the Spanish candidacy for the 2030 Winter Olympics in the Pyrenees of Catalonia and Aragon. The Spanish Olympic Committee (COE) and the government have decided to abolish the project, according to the ACN service and Ara newspaper. The COE will meet with its leadership this Tuesday and, after the meeting, its chairman, Alejandro Blanco, will make the formal announcement that there will be no Spanish candidacy for the 2030 Games.
The project has stalled due to discrepancies between the three governments involved (Central, Catalan and Aragonese), especially the administration of Aragon, with the distribution of venues for sports disciplines. The COE, the government and the Aragon government initially reached a technical agreement on site allocation in March, but the executive, chaired by Socialist Javier Lambán, subsequently distanced itself. His claim has always been that Aragon and Catalonia should participate in the candidacy for 50%, “on equal terms”, as the government had initially said. Anything that was not evenly distributed among the venues and disciplines has been rejected by the government of Aragon, which in recent weeks has handed over new proposals to the parties, which have been rejected.
Given the lack of agreement, the Catalan government announced last week that it would opt for the solo candidacy project, without Aragon, an extreme that both the COE and the central government have rejected. In the Catalan part, the Generalitat closed ranks with the project, despite the fact that it was initially accepted with doubt. It even put the final decision on whether Catalonia would choose to host against Salt Lake City and Vancouver in the hands of the affected provinces. From the central government, the candidacy was framed as part of the agenda of the reunification of Catalonia with the rest of Spain after the ‘trials’.
On the Catalan side, on Monday they denounced the government of Aragon and the central government, blaming them for the failure of the project, which could be resumed by 2034, but perhaps in a different format and with protagonists. The ERC has insisted that the government and, in particular, the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, face difficulties by rejecting a Catalan candidacy. The independence movement is fueling complaints about investments in Catalonia and the Olympic candidacy is on the list, with a Catalan minister, Iceta, added. ERC accuses Iceta of missing an opportunity and giving in to Lambán’s blackmail. “You have to explain why you let Catalonia lose opportunities,” said ERC. “There has been a boycott of Aragon and an accomplice government silence,” Junts said. “The anti-Catalanist interests of the PSOE of Aragon have been given priority,” the nationalist formation has concluded.
Source: La Verdad
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