From outside the pharmacy where the Catalan government presented its campaign for the distribution of free menstrual products, the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) and Pere Aragonès spoke with pride of the work done in the equality and feminisms area by minister Tània Verge over the last three years. For this reason, the minister asked women to use their vote in the Catalan election this May 12th to guarantee that this newly created department remains in the next legislature, in the face of the threat that if the Catalan Socialists (PSC) or Together for Catalonia (Junts) rule, they will end up abolishing it. Neither of those two parties has made a statement on whether or not they would keep this ministry created by Aragonès when he came to the Catalan presidency.
In this regard, Verge regretted that the two parties, Junts and the PSC, have not yet stated what their proposals are in terms of feminism, and she reprimanded them both for failing to demand "even one euro" for feminist policies in the last years' budget negotiations. For this reason, she underlined that in this election, one of the elements at stake is "to have or not to have a ministry of feminism, and the only force that can guarantee it is an ERC government". In the same vein, the minister reproached the PSC for "abandoning their support for women who have carried out feminist policies when the extreme right massacred them", referring to Spanish minister Irene Montero, of Podemos, whom Verge always supported during the crisis over the Spanish sexual freedom act, the so-called "only yes means yes" law.
ERC calls for greater force against fascism
Aragonès surrounded himself with women at this event, among them the party spokesperson and candidate for Lleida, Marta Vilalta, who assured that these elections are also about feminism and the anti-fascist struggle. In this regard, Vilalta celebrated that the PSC and Junts have finally joined the multi-party commitment to avoid making agreements with the far right parties Vox and Catalan Alliance (AC), but she mentioned her her disappointment over the ambiguity of Junts when speaking of the Catalan extreme right party "that covers itself up with the flag". However, in Tuesday's television debate on 3CAT, Junts's Josep Rull closed the door to this possibility by asserting that his party would not reach any agreement with AC.
In turn, Laura Vilagrà, number 2 in the Catalan government as well as on the Barcelona candidature list, also sowed doubts about the continuity of the ministry in the event that it is not ERC who leads the Generalitat, commenting that the feminism as practiced by the PSC and PSOE is handled so as not to upset "the friends of Pedro Sánchez" and that Junts, when it governed, reduced the budget of the Catalan Women's Institute to a minimum, which destroys its credibility on the subject. The vice president of the Catalan Government highlighted the work done by minister Verge not only in her department but for the advocacy she has done in pushing the government as a whole to move forward in this regard.