The announcement of the Minister of Health, Caroline Darias, last week, that the Government had approved the creation of the state health agency has given way to the first movements, still incipient, of some autonomies to achieve the ‘pole position’ as soon as the melon opens where it will be installed this organism. Aragon, Asturias, Extremadura and the Valencian Community They have already raised their hands to welcome the center.
And Catalonia? Various sources from the Government, departmental and Presidencycoincide both in what they say, and in the forcefulness in which they express themselves: “We don’t know anything, nor have we talked about it. Neither between presidents nor between executives. It is a debate that is of great interest to the PSOE, because it gives a patina of normality autonomy to a situation that is anything but normal”, asserts a voice from the Palau de la Generalitat. “One more ‘success’ on the agenda for the reunion”, sentence with all the sarcasm.
Another voice from the party points out that this fledgling agency could become the new “transfer of the Senate to Barcelona”. “It is something that the socialists are releasing, but there is nothing,” he says.
In Moncloa they do not want to specify when the decision of the location will be made and they see “premature & rdquor; start the debate on the headquarters of this new state agency. The minister spokesperson, Isabel Rodriguezwho stressed that before specifying the location, it is necessary to “some previous work & rdquor ;, to analyze the “indicators & rdquor; that define where it is best for “employment generation & rdquor ;.
Rodríguez did underline that now “an area of competitive competition is opening up so that the General Administration of the State has greater presence & rdquor; Y generate “synergies that improve” the cohesion of Spain “from the social point of view & rdquor ;.
This agency had been pending creation since the covid-19 broke out in 2020, and they saw the failures of the Spanish health system, which has the competence of health transferred to the autonomous communities. With this new center it is expected that the different levels of the administration will be coordinated efficiently and operationally and serve to encompass other bodies that act autonomously (such as university centers, the Carlos III Health Institute and the Coordination Center for Health Alerts and Emergencies…) and as the main link with international entities, not only the World Health Organization (WHO)but also the European agency HERA (Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Agency) and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
Needless to say, even for the reason that led to its creation, that one of the main tasks of the Spanish agency, whose public consultation began in September last year, will be anticipate new health crises and improve the existing surveillance network and expand it.
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In the absence of knowing what position the Barcelona’s town hall, The antecedent of a possible Barcelona designation to host the agency can be found more in the transfer of the CMT (Telecommunications Market Commission) in 2005, by design of the Government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. The measure raised wide controversy, encouraged by the then regional president of Madrid, Hope Aguirre, that reached even justice.
Thus, in 2006, the Supreme Court heard the complaint from the Community of Madrid and considered that the royal decree that authorized the transfer from Madrid to Barcelona is “contrary to law” due to its defects in “form and procedure”. All in all, the CMT ended up landing in Barcelona, although, yes, in 2013, the PP Government included it, along with National Energy Commission (CNE); National Competition Commission (CNC); National Commission of the Postal Sector (CNSP) and the Railway and Airport Regulation Committee (CRF) in a newly minted organism, the National Commission of the Competition Market (CNMC). Based on Calle de Alcalá in the capital of Spain.