The last control session for the President of the Generalitat before the summer holidays was marked by the confrontation between Salvador Illa and Junts per Catalunya over the data on the execution of state investments in the autonomous communities, which in the Catalan case was 8.6% in 2025. The president of JxCat in the Parliament, Mònica Sales, reproached Illa that the “main problem” of Catalonia is him because he “stays silent, accepts, and tolerates” these “devastating data”. The president acknowledged that there is a “problem” with state investment, that it “is not enough” and has once again defended the investment consortium agreed with ERC to reverse it. Along these lines, the socialist criticized Junts for not making any proposal “beyond complaining”.
Salvador Illa wondered if the post-convergents are there to “solve or wallow in the problem” and contrasted himself with Carles Puigdemont’s party: “It hasn’t even been two years since I became president and I have put a solution on the table with the consortium. It may seem little to them, but are they for useful politics or not?”. Still in this context, the head of the Catalan Executive reminded Junts that they have “capacity for influence” in Congress and encouraged them to add their votes to those of the PSC, ERC, and Comuns to create this parity entity between the State and the Generalitat that would allow accelerating the execution of investments.
The CUP has also joined the rejection of the investment consortium. Its deputy Dani Cornellà has maintained that “it is smoke” because “it will only serve to monitor non-execution and divestment”. “The information is already known, no consortium is needed for that,” he added.
Another issue raised by both JxCat and Esquerra Republicana is the demand for an “unconditional” application of the Amnesty Law after the ECJ ruling, to which the president has again responded that he demands it be done with “maximum speed and diligence”. However, both pro-independence parties have countered his doubts about the law of penal oblivion before it was approved and before the PSOE accepted it. Josep Maria Jové, leader of the republicans in the Catalan Chamber, retorted to Illa that “amnesty does not mean amnesia” and, unlike the “normalization” defended by the socialists, ERC interprets that with this law “nothing ends”.
Therefore, the republican ranks ask the president that if he wants “reunion and coexistence,” he should address the “resolution of the political conflict by giving a voice to the people as he committed to in the investiture agreement”. The socialist has defended that “we can talk about the place Catalonia should have in Spain and be able to decide among everyone within the framework of coexistence and the rule of law”.
From the Comuns, Jéssica Albiach has demanded that the Catalan leader request both Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, that the Via Laietana police station be an “integral space of memory”. After it was published last Friday in the BOE that this location be recognized as such, the ecosocialists celebrate it but see it as “incompatible” with the National Police headquarters being maintained.
In his reply, Salvador Illa assured that he is “completely in agreement” with Via Laietana being a space of memory, but wanted to emphasize that the National Police is a “democratic police force”. From this perspective, the President of the Generalitat sees it as “compatible” for these agents to “exercise their functions with the recovery of a space of democratic memory”.
For his part, the Spanish national team’s World Cup victory has been a source of conflict between the head of the Executive and Alejandro Fernández. The PPC leader criticized the president’s “doublethink” for “celebrating Spain’s triumph and at the same time voting against receiving the world champions in Parliament”. “I ask him to rectify, that we receive them as appropriate and that we all shout together ‘visca Catalunya and viva España’,” concluded the popular politician.
In response to these words, Illa accused the PP of “instrumentalizing” the national team and recalled that he has received several Catalan athletes at the Palau de la Generalitat who have represented the Spanish national team in different disciplines: “I don’t have to rectify anything, it’s everyone’s triumph”.
As a culmination to this last control session, the president reviewed a political year that he described as “positive” due to the approval of the budgets and the horizon of “stability” they provide to move towards “shared prosperity”. In any case, Salvador Illa has set challenges such as “doing more in housing or with more reformist impulses in education and health”. However, Junts has “failed” the socialist in “management and defense of Catalonia”.
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