According to what was heard this Thursday in the Cortes de Aragón and the latest warnings from the COE, which has dated May 20 as the last day for there to be an agreement between the DGA and the Generalitat, it can be almost fact that the Winter Olympic Games will once again pass by the Aragonese Pyrenees.
There are exactly 15 days left for someone to come to their senses, or for everyone to give up their position a bit for what is understood to be an extraordinary good for the snow of the mountain range bordering France. It doesn’t seem like it, quite the opposite if you listen to the Aragonese president, Javier Lambán: “The Generalitat has this project as its own and the reality is that it has never accepted us except as comparsas. And we are not going to lower our demands even if that means a break in the negotiation. The ball is in the court of others. If there is no equality, there will be no Games”.
Aragón has been able to speak a thousand times of equal footing since the possibility of this candidacy was opened in 2019. It has never arrived, at least for Lambán, who has appeared in plenary session of the Cortes to respond to the “repeated contempt and continued attacks “, as quoted by the PP, whose spokesperson, Mar Vaquero, has insisted on his determination not to resort to Pedro Sánchez to settle the conflict and not defend the candidacy outside Aragón.
The president, who has accused her “of coming wanting to brawl like every day”, has assured that this is not the time to issue “mistaken” signals no matter how “very skeptical we are” because we have to be seated until the last minute desk “so that we are not blamed for the failure of the candidacy”.
He has also defended Sánchez by assuring that he cannot impose his criteria, but rather that Catalonia and Aragón “are the ones that can block the project”, so the Government of Spain “has nothing to do”, said Lambán, who has admitted several times the difficulties of the moment: “If there is no agreement there will be no Games”.
“I don’t know when the IOC representatives will come, or even if they will come. I don’t think they are interested in investing their energy in a bid that has no agreement”
Lambán has unfolded various considerations to explain the moment, beginning by recalling that Aragón did not knock on the door but was “invited by the president” and admitting that, separately, “we will never have the Games”, something that seems very far away if takes into account that Alejandro Blanco already warned last week that he had had to delay the visit of the IOC members to the Pyrenees.
“I don’t know when they will come, or even if they will come. I don’t think they are interested in investing their energy in a candidacy that has no agreement,” said the president, who insists that his purpose is “to rise the last from the table.”
Vaquero has reminded him that if the project goes ahead “it would be a miracle as it has been managed, looking for culprits in Catalonia or in the COE but never in the Government itself or in Sánchez’s”, to which Lambán has responded with an augur: “If there is an agreement, they will look at the candidacy, they will not like it and they will blame me. If there is no agreement, they will agree with Pere Aragonès and they will also blame me”.
Among the groups, Álvaro Sanz (IU) has spoken of “Olympic delirium” and has criticized the talk of many things “but not sustainability”, an issue in which CHA and Podemos have also entered. Joaquín Palacín has argued that these “Olympic macro-events” entail great expense “and strong effects on the territory, while Nacho Escartín has left two questions: “How many of you believe that sustainability is an Olympic value? How many believe that the Olympic Games will be held in Aragon?”. She has answered: “We are not here to squander.”
useless discussion
Jesus Warrior (PAR) has called for unity and unanimity and Joseph Louis Saz (Cs) has confessed to Lambán that they are going to support him “without scolding him” and has asked him “not to fail in the defense of Aragon”, before the socialist Vicente Guillen closed the shift by assuring that the debate “has not had any use” at this time and that it has only served “to try to wear down Pedro Sánchez and Javier Lambán”.
In his response, the president maintained that the Games would be “environmentally sustainable”, that there is “sufficient” social and political support in Aragon and that the problem is not that the COE does not want an equal candidacy, but that thinks it’s “egalitarian”, which is “even worse”.
Finally, Lambán has repeated that the ball is in the court of the COE and of Catalonia after Aragón presented a counterproposal “that it is in your hands to accept”. It does not seem that they are going to do it by listening to those responsible in the last hours. There is already a deadline, the clock is ticking, the Games are slipping away.
