Catalan president, Pere Aragonès, admitted more money must be allocated to education after the controversy caused by the PISA tests poor results. "It is vital to continue investing even more effort, and continue working together with the educational community, because our children and young people are the present and the future of the country", said the president in his traditional institutional Christmas message. He called on the political parties to show "responsibility and commitment" in order to pass the 2024 budget, which he considers "essential to continue moving forward".
Aragonès delivered this year's speech from the king Martí water deposit, an old water tank in Barcelona, as a symbol of the Catalan government's "commitment" to managing the drought. However, he did not speak at length on this issue, and simply expressing his gratitude for the "extraordinary commitment" of farmers and livestock breeders, warning that "an effort by the rest of society" will still be needed, as well as continued investment in water infrastructures. Education and the drought, however, were just some of the "great challenges" that the head of the Catalan executive listed for the new year, among which he also mentioned dependency, public health, housing, the fight against violence against women, Catalan language, the Rodalies commuter service, and Catalonia's freedom.
Transfer of Rodalies and new funding, objectives for 2024
The president gave a positive assessment of 2023, which he described as a year in which "major milestones" were reached, and highlighted the agreements with the Spanish government for the "complete transfer of Rodalies", which he hopes will start to be implemented next year, and the amnesty law, which he hoped will be passed and "fully" applied in 2024, so that "freedom and the return to Catalonia of repressed people" can be achieved. He added that amnesty is "a necessary step" to tackle "the next phase of negotiation with the Spanish state" so that "Catalonia can freely decide her future". Aragonès also called for a "singular financing" to be agreed to with the Spanish state in 2024, with the aim of "putting an end to an unbearable fiscal deficit".
He also called for "a new commitment from everyone to the Catalan language", with the mission of ensuring that it has "more presence than ever before everywhere" and that the language is strengthened. In this area, he recalled that today "we have more audiovisual material than ever", that Catalan can be used in the Spanish Congress of Deputies and that the path has begun for it to become official in the European Union. "Catalans, 2024 will be the year we decide it is. Let us make it the year in which we win the future we deserve", concluded Aragonès.