The 2030 Olympic Games are almost definitely moving away from the Pyrenees

If time heals everything, perhaps the Olympic bid to host the 2030 Winter Games in the Pyrenees needs a few years to heal the wounds between Catalonia, Aragon and the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE).

Four more years, exactly.

Committee sources admit that the current immobility forces to rethink the candidacy to "save" it with a view to a possible project aimed at the 2034 Games. The positions between the administrations remain very far apart and the COE fears that it no longer has resources for a agreement between the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Diputación General de Aragón (DGA) for the 2030 event. The Olympic body, in any case, is still reluctant to consider the project dead while waiting for an unexpected last-minute twist.

The candidacy has been late for weeks.

The COE postponed in May the visit of the technicians of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) due to the lack of specification of the location of the tests and had to excuse two weeks ago before the international president, Thomas Bach, the political disputes between the Generalitat and the DGA.

The wound seems deep because there is no communication and the reproaches are continuous between Catalonia and Aragon.

The central government observes the discord from a distance, and the president, Pedro Sánchez, has not intervened publicly to resolve the situation.

Sánchez's prudence has surprised even the COE, which between corridors admits that he trusted his entrance on the scene to unblock the situation.

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The candidacy of the Olympic disunity for the 2030 Winter Games

The latest example of the complexity of the agreement was experienced on Tuesday, at the last meeting called by the COE, which was attended by the usual representatives of all administrations: Felipe Faci, Sports Counselor of the DGA;

Laura Vilagrà, Minister of the Presidency of the Generalitat;

Víctor Francos, General Secretary of Culture;

and the president of the COE, Alejandro Blanco.

The digital meeting lasted an hour and a half, and sources present in the dialogue admit that Blanco and Faci continued to discuss the words and decisions made in recent weeks.

Aragón maintains that the COE has not respected the "equality" promised in the distribution of evidence, and the Committee is fed up with the demands of the DGA, which once again presented a different technical alternative to the one agreed by the Generalitat,

the COE and the central government last April.

Faced with the difficulty of reaching an agreement, people close to Blanco admit that the president of the COE already admits the possibility of announcing the end of the candidacy.

Other sources, however, insist that the leader continues to hurry up all the options to get out of the crisis.

Officials of the Generalitat, for their part, admit a slight disappointment at the tone used by Blanco in recent weeks, less restrictive to find an alternative if the Catalan-Aragonese agreement finally fails.

"If there is no agreement, we are prepared to reach 2030", they insist from the Catalan Executive.

The only Catalan option is especially disliked in Moncloa due to the political cost that supporting a project endorsed by a pro-independence government would entail.

Nor do the "improvable" relations between the Generalitat and the Government seem to help, as the spokeswoman for the Catalan Executive, Patrícia Plaja, admitted on Tuesday.

"That [the situation] does not get off the ground is because one of the parties involved is Catalonia," the spokeswoman suggested.

Precisely political interference has led the candidacy to a very worrying situation, they admit from the COE.

The objective of the Committee now is to "save" the candidacy with a view to 2034. "It is essential that the candidacy of the Pyrenees does not burn in the eyes of the IOC or the Government of Spain," remarks a source from the committee.

Sapporo (Japan), Salt Lake (United States) and Vancouver (Canada) are the best placed candidates for the 2030 event. The IOC plans to choose the Olympic venue in the first half of 2023.

Competence shock due to the consultation

The soap opera that the candidacy for the 2030 Winter Olympics has become adds a new disagreement.

The Government disputes the legality of the decree approved by the Generalitat to organize the popular consultation that must decide whether or not the Pyrenees host the Olympic event.

The competition clash threatens to be the last straw in an event that walks on a tightrope.

For now, a negotiation process is opened between the Government and the Generalitat to try to polish the legal text.

But the possibility that the decree ends up on the table of the Constitutional Court is announced as a reality.

The

defends that the norm is irreproachable and considers that the suspicions of the State are "an attack" on the autonomous powers.

This was stated this Tuesday by the spokeswoman for the Catalan Executive, Patrícia Plaja.

“The problem is not legality, because it has everything.

The problem is the nerves that appear in Madrid every time there is talk of consulting something with the Catalans”, said the spokeswoman.

Despite the reproach shown by the Catalan Executive from doors out, both administrations are granted a time for dialogue to readapt the norm.

This recess can be extended up to “eight months”, said Plaja.

At the beginning of April,

Pere Aragonès signed the decree to promote the binding consultation on the candidacy for the 2030 Winter Olympic Games. July 24 was set as the date to proceed to a vote in the Pyrenees counties, and it was also reserved the same date to ask the opinion about the event to those registered in Solsonès, Berguedà and Ripollès.

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