The Government of Aragon insists that there is no agreement for a joint candidacy between Aragón and Catalonia for the Winter Games 2030. The president of Aragon, Javier Lambán, and the Minister of Education and Sports, Felipe Faci, have insisted this Wednesday that the project, in the political phase, does not have the approval of the regional Executive and, therefore, cannot be agreed.
Both have insisted that continue to work on an Aragonese proposal for the Games 2030which includes Catalonia, but with a different distribution of venues and disciplines that, in his opinion, better respects the conditions of equality that the Spanish Olympic Committee has defended from the beginning of the negotiations.
The “equal footing” that has presided over each of the meetings of the Aragonese president, Javier Lambán, with the president of the COE, Alejandro Blanco. Lambán has not set a date for the presentation of the Aragonese proposal, but has recognized that, at the latest, it would arrive “next week”.
“We do not intend to break anything, but that what we demanded from the beginning, that the candidacy be based on a balanced distribution between Aragon and Catalonia, is fulfilleda”, he expressed this Wednesday morning, from Sariñena. In addition, he assured that they will present their proposal “with a constructive spirit” to the COE.
The Aragonese Executive insists that an agreement cannot be reached when “at least one of the parties” is not in agreement with the technical proposal. “The technical committee, appointed by the Government of Aragon, has been making proposals, almost always unluckyuntil the president of the COE said that the technical part was over”, explained Lambán.
“Now in the political part we see that the final conclusions of the technical part, how many proposals from Aragon have been accepted and we see that the result does not correspond to the maxim of a candidacy on an equal footing”has added.
Not only has the president said that the proposal is not “balanced”, but it is understood that there is a “absolute imbalance towards Cataloniawith only one Aragonese ski resort with the possibility of opting for tests”.
“We do not agree with that proposal, and we will present a proposal to the COE balanced and equal alternative“, stressed the Aragonese president, who has also echoed the words of the president of the Spanish Winter Sports Federation, May Peus, on Cadena SER, in which, in addition to being “puzzled” by stating that in the technical commission “there was an agreement”, has recognized that any resort in the Pyrenees is capable of hosting any Olympic event, including Formigal and Cerler.
In this sense, Lambán has made it clear: “If all the Aragonese resorts meet exactly the same requirements as the Catalan ones to develop the queen event of games of this nature, which is alpine skiing, technically there is no problem. This means, implicitly, that locating alpine skiing in Catalonia is not a technical decision but a political one.therefore we say that it has to be addressed in the political arena, which is where decisions have to be made”.
For this reason, he insisted: “We do not intend to break anything, we do not intend to have privileges, but rather we demand the same as at the beginning and that the President of the Government of Spain recognized as a fair and valid criterion; a balanced distribution of opportunities, of tests; and that being on an equal footing is fulfilled”.
