Salvador Illa, the President of the Generalitat, praised former president Pere Aragonès on Friday 10 July during the handover of the documentary archive from Aragonès's term to the National Archive of Catalonia, describing his predecessor's approach as a "non-patrimonial concept of the country and the institution".

The remarks matter beyond the ceremony because they set out how Catalonia's current and former presidents say public institutions should be handled: as shared institutions rather than party property. For residents, civil servants and anyone dealing with the Generalitat, Catalonia's autonomous government, the event was presented as a public statement about continuity in office and the preservation of official records.

"I saw in President Aragonès a non-patrimonial concept of the country and the institution," Illa said, according to reporting published on 10 July by La Vanguardia and El Periódico.

According to the accounts published by La Vanguardia and El Periódico, Illa also thanked Aragonès for not making what he described as a "patrimonial" use of either "the country" or the Generalitat.

National Archive ceremony revisits the transfer of power

The event took place at the National Archive of Catalonia, where Aragonès's documentary collection from his three-year term was handed over. Reporting cited in the source material says Illa used the occasion to again call the transfer of power carried out when Aragonès left the Palau de la Generalitat "exemplary".

Ara's English-language report said Illa described that earlier handover as a "reference" for his own eventual departure from office, adding with what the outlet described as a half-smile that he hoped "there are still a few years left".

  • Date of the archive handover event: Friday 10 July 2026.
  • Location: National Archive of Catalonia.
  • Subject of the handover: documentary records from Aragonès's three-year term.
"He always put the institution before everything else," Illa said of Aragonès, according to Ara's account of the ceremony.

Aragonès calls for an inclusive Generalitat

Aragonès also used the ceremony to defend the Generalitat as an institution that should remain open to all. According to Ara, he said the Generalitat should continue to be "an inclusive institution" and preserve "the idea of Catalonia as one people".

The same report said Aragonès linked that argument to a wider political context in which democracy is being "questioned" in different parts of the world. He also defined Catalonia as a collective project built around culture, language, self-government and freedom.

Illa broadly endorsed the idea of a shared national project, while signalling a nuance in how he sees it. According to Ara, he said the concepts of country and nation are part of a collective project with different visions, and that democracy exists so those visions can be contested.

For readers who want to follow statements and announcements from the Catalan government directly, the Generalitat publishes institutional information through its official channels. The event reported on Friday concerned the custody of presidential records at the National Archive of Catalonia, rather than a new public service or application process.

Reported by Source Text Link, Carlota Camps, lavanguardia.com, Por Newsroom Infobae Agregar Infobae en Agrega Infobae a tus medios preferidos en Google, Mireia Esteve, rac1.cat, catalannews.com, Sílvia Marimon, CatalunyaPress.es, AGENCIAS, Miguel Salazar Publicado: 09 de agosto de 2024, 17:05, Anton Rosa, cronista.com, La Vanguardia Catalonia.