Nine years after the last visit of the President of the Generalitat of Catalonia to the Zarzuela Palace, Salvador Illa met this morning with Felipe VI.
As soon as she entered the courtroom, Illa said she was “very well, very happy to be here” Felipe VI, greeting the President of the Generalitat, expressed “how good it is!” and, seeing so many journalists in front of them, he told Illa that “it is not usual.”
Illa’s visit reflects institutional normality of the Catalan government, after the elections of May 24 and the investiture of Illa as president of the Generalitat on August 8.
With his visit this morning, Salvador Illa has returned to the custom of regional presidents going to the Zarzuela Palace after taking the oath of office. His predecessors –Carles Puigdemont, Quim Torra and Pere Aragonés– They did not attend this meeting when they were elected. The last president of the Generalitat to meet the king in his office was Artur Mas in 2015.
For Illa, as the spokesperson for the Catalan Government, Sílvia Peneque, explained yesterday, this visit to the King “is part of one of the fundamental principles” of his political activity, which consists of restoring “normality to the different administrations”: “The message that we want to convey is that of institutional normality. This line that the socialists are following in Catalonia is the same as before they arrived in the Generalitat, when it was common for Illa, from the opposition, to attend the institutional events of the King in Catalonia.
Today is not the first time that Salvador Illa and Felipe VI have met since he became President of the Generalitat. During the King’s last trip to Catalonia, at the end of the same month, Illa received and accompanied Felipe VI during his visit to the Olympic Port of Barcelona, on the occasion of the 37th edition of the America’s Cup.
Report a bug
