He, in the hands of the PP, tends his hand to the sentence of the Supreme Court that forces the executive of the Socialist Salvador Illa to return the paintings, now exposed in the National Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) of Barcelona, to the Oscense monastery. The Minister of Culture, Tomasa Hernández, is favorable to expand the period of 20 days marked by the judicial ruling for the transfer of the frescoes, but rejects that Catalonia take the matter to the Constitutional Court.
The Aragonese president, Jorge Azcón, went to the Presidents conference that was held in the city with the idea of being able to transfer the collaboration plan and the experts offered by his government to help in this transfer. After the meeting, he stressed that the person responsible for executing the sentence is the Generalitat. Azcón has defended that the transfer of the mural paintings of this Aragonese monastery is not a matter of political responsibility but legal, and has offered “technical collaboration” to the Catalan government.
On the other hand, his opposition advanced this Friday to prolong the judicial battle around these paintings, after Juns has asked the Generalitat to go to the Constitutional Court. Hernández, a judge who exercised in the first instance in the Balearic Islands, hung the toga temporarily when Azcón offered to be a counselor of his government. This Friday, before the microphones of the SER chain in Zaragoza, it resorted to the right to defend the Aragonese position validated by justice. “We do not understand this invocation to the Constitutional, in this matter the protection does not fit,” he said. “If this request for Junts is carried out to the Catalan government and this route is opened, a sentence that is firm is delayed because the goods are from Aragon.” The counselor also rejects the adhesion document that the Catalan Culture Minisers made public, ensuring that “she has a political nuance, but she is neither technical nor legal.”
Hernández tends his hand to Catalonia. “We really hope, it is a desire and a conviction, that there is collaboration,” he emphasizes. It is the Catalan government, Recalca, who has to comply with the sentence and carry out the transfer of the wall paintings “putting the human and technical material means necessary to do so, without looking at the economic reach or repairing expenses.” But “we offer ourselves to collaborate,” he adds.
The Minister of Culture of Aragon trusts the moderate mood of President Illa, who expects “is a voice supporting compliance with the sentence.” But, at the same time, he asks to wait for the meeting that the MNAC Board of Trustees will have on June 16, an organ of which the Generalitat is also part. “We are going to expect what position they adopt,” he says. Hernández acknowledges “the difficulty of voluntary compliance with the sentence” within the period marked by it, that is, in 20 business days since the ruling came out on May 27. At that time, the Aragonese counselor clarifies, compliance “does not have to be complete, but a will and start of that fulfillment have to be seen.”
Aragon offers “technical collaboration”, in the words of Azcón, because in Catalonia the main repairs that are put to the transfer of these Romanesque frescoes is the danger to which they are damaged. The Parliament approved a statement with the votes in favor of PSC, Junts, ERC, common and CUP in which it is stated that the operation “can behave irreversible risks for its conservation.” The Catalan parties show that the mural paintings “are in a state of fragility, with a great sensitivity to any change in the environment or before possible tensions, vibrations and movements.” They are also worried that the return to their community of origin of these frescoes, which were restored by the Catalan Museum, becomes a “precedent” regarding other existing works in other cultural institutions.
The president of Aragon, in his appearance in Barcelona this Friday after the presidents conference, recalled that the paintings traveled to New York already London to two exhibitions without so many objections. “Why now when Aragon demands compliance with a sentence is a problem?” Azcón asked.
