# Salvador Illa

# Salvador Illa

Salvador Illa Roca (born 5 May 1966) is a politician of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia and president of the [Generalitat de Catalunya](/organizations/generalitat-de-catalunya) since 10 August 2024. The Parliament of Catalonia elected him on 8 August 2024 by 68 votes, the PSC's 42 deputies joined by 20 from the [Republican Left of Catalonia](/organizations/republican-left-of-catalonia) and six from Comuns Sumar. He was the first president since 2010 whose party favoured Catalonia remaining in Spain, after more than a decade of pro-independence-led governments, and he heads a minority PSC executive, the government of Salvador Illa, that must negotiate laws with other parties.

Illa was born in La Roca del Vallès, near Barcelona, and holds a philosophy degree from the University of Barcelona and a master's in business management from IESE at the University of Navarra. He was mayor of La Roca del Vallès from 1995 to 2005, director-general for infrastructure in the Catalan justice department from 2005 to 2009, and held economic and group-management posts at [Barcelona City Council](/organizations/barcelona-city-council) between 2010 and 2016. In November 2016 he became the PSC's secretary for organization and was one of the negotiators of [Pedro Sánchez](/people/pedro-sanchez)'s investiture agreement with the Republican Left. A royal decree of 12 January 2020 named him minister of health, a portfolio he had not previously held.

As health minister he was the political face of Spain's response to the [COVID-19 pandemic](/drivers/covid-19-pandemic) in Spain. On 26 January 2021, during the third wave of infections, he left the ministry to lead the PSC list in the Catalan election of 14 February; Sánchez named Carolina Darias his successor, and the departure drew criticism from the opposition and from [Unidas Podemos](/organizations/unidas-podemos). With most of the count complete the PSC took about 23 percent of the vote and 33 seats, tying the Republican Left, while the Republican Left, Together for Catalonia and the CUP together held 74 seats, enough to invest Pere Aragonès. Illa said he would seek the presidency anyway and spent the following legislature leading the opposition.

On 12 May 2024 the PSC won 42 seats, nine more than in 2021, and about 28 percent of the vote, the first time the party led both in seats and in the popular vote. A majority required the same 68-seat combination with the Republican Left and Comuns Sumar that later voted him in. The investiture debate went ahead after [Carles Puigdemont](/people/carles-puigdemont) appeared in Barcelona and left before any arrest; Junts asked to suspend the session, and the parliament's bureau refused. In his first National Day address Illa called for unity, stronger public services, action on housing and fairer wages, and described Catalonia as built by people who had come from elsewhere in Spain and the world. In the investiture speech he asked that the amnesty law be applied "quickly and without deceit."

## Early life and education

### Family and schooling

Salvador Illa i Roca was born on 5 May 1966 in La Roca del Vallès, in the Vallès Oriental of Catalonia, Spain, about 40 kilometres from Barcelona, and has continued to live in the town. He is the eldest of three brothers. His father, Josep Illa, from Cardedeu, began as a barber and later worked at the Textiles y Bordados factory in La Roca, where Illa has described him as commercial director of a textile company; his mother, Maria Roca, worked at home for the firm, and Illa has said that his first pay came from the embroidery workshop she kept in the house. He attended the Fundació La Caixa school in La Roca and, for three years in adolescence, the Piarist Escola Pia in Granollers. At a 2024 alumni gathering there he said that those present carried "an imprint of what was given to us during the years we were educated here."

Illa has said that money was not plentiful at home—he and his brother Josep wore glasses, and a broken pair was, in his words, "a drama"—and that his four grandparents, all from the Vallès, left him with an emphasis on work, effort and family. The paternal grandparents, Salvador Illa and Ana Moré, born on a farmhouse in the Montseny, lived in the same house. He has described that grandfather as a mountain worker—charcoal burner, basket maker, pedlar and forest cleaner—who was called up in the Civil War and returned ill, and grandmother Ana as a dressmaker who kept the household while her husband was away; the maternal grandparents, Jaume and Maria, did not share the house, and he has said he remembers them less. Summers, he has recalled, meant the family house and large garden in La Roca, camping on the Costa Brava, and caravan trips to southern France, Switzerland and Italy, and as a child he wanted to be a writer.

### University, military service and further study

Illa took a licentiate in philosophy at the University of Barcelona. The Parliament of Catalonia dates that degree to 1989; the Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana gives 1986. For a time he also studied law, which he did not finish. *Ara*, citing former teachers, described a strong student drawn to analytic philosophy and logic. He has said that Thucydides' *History of the Peloponnesian War* marked him, and that he admires Plato, Leibniz and Baltasar Gracián.

He performed compulsory military service in the infantry militias of the Spanish Army and was trained as an *alférez*, with a company of about a hundred men, at the Cuartel del Bruc in Barcelona. He later said that the army was "an ordered world," and that a captain who, after a failed rehearsal of the oath to the flag, gave leave to the only man who had done it well taught him to motivate people rather than only to reprimand them.

He then took a master's degree in economics and business management at IESE Business School, of the University of Navarra, which the Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana dates to 1993; he has said he chose it thinking he needed something that would let him earn a living. The parliamentary biography records "master's studies" in business administration at IESE and does not give a year. From 2012 to 2016 he was an associate professor on the international-relations degree at the Blanquerna Faculty of Communication and International Relations of University Ramon Llull, where he taught an introduction to economics in English, and from 2013 to 2016 an associate professor at the University of Barcelona.

## Local government and the PSC organization

### Mayor of La Roca del Vallès

A councillor in La Roca del Vallès in 1987–89 and 1991–95, Illa joined the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC) in 1995 as number two to Romà Planas. Planas won that May and died of a heart attack in September; Illa, aged 29, became mayor on 23 September 1995.

*La Roca del Vallès, the municipality Illa governed as mayor.*

In May 1998 an Iniciativa per Catalunya councillor left the pact with the PSC and the Grup Independent de la Roca. A bloc calling itself the New Democratic Majority — expelled defectors from Convergence and Union and from Iniciativa, plus three councillors from Independents of La Torreta — tabled a no-confidence motion alleging mismanagement. Illa's side would not call the debate. In October 1998 the council cut his full-time salary of 230,000 pesetas a month; he continued unpaid.

The High Court of Justice of Catalonia ordered the sitting in late January 1999. On 5 February the motion passed and Josep Estapé, who had left CiU, became mayor. The socialists said development interests lay behind it. Only the three Torreta councillors on the new team stood again.

On 13 June 1999 Illa's joint PSC list won eight of the 13 seats (2,097 votes, 54.67 percent), and he returned on 3 July. In May 2003 the PSC–Progrés Municipal–GIR list took six seats to CiU's five. He resigned on 17 September 2005 and was succeeded by his first deputy, Miquel Estapé.

In 1998 the council approved a Value Retail outlet begun under the previous mayor, Joan Pujol. It opened on 8 July as La Roca Company Stores, later La Roca Village, with about twenty of more than eighty shops trading beside the motorway. By 2021 it drew about 4.4 million visitors a year, and reporting called La Roca the second most visited municipality in Catalonia after Barcelona. Traders and later mayors said visitors barely entered the town, so the promised windfall was mostly some income for services and extra traffic. The council also opened branch offices, clinics, a library and a pool.

Illa defended a golf-and-housing scheme at Vilalba against Cardedeu, and in May 2005 told a lawyer who had advised that council that he was persona non grata unless the client changed counsel. Albert Gil, of the Republican Left of Catalonia and mayor in 2021, credited the remade centre but said later councils were still unwinding the golf plan, overruns on a sports pavilion, and a rezoning that touched land partly owned by the father of Illa's urban-planning councillor. Plenaries were hostile enough that the municipal police sometimes attended.

### The Department of Justice and Barcelona City Council

In September 2005 he became director-general for infrastructure management in the [Department of Justice](/organizations/department-of-justice) of the Generalitat de Catalunya, under the government of Pasqual Maragall and then José Montilla, with the penitentiary and court-building programmes in his brief. Prisons then under construction included Lledoners, Puig de les Basses and Mas d'Enric. In April 2009 he left, at his own request, for a few months as an executive at the producer Cromosoma, later described as a failed interval in the private sector.

In 2010, near the end of Jordi Hereu's term, the PSC placed him at the City Council of Barcelona to run accounts, the budget and financial analysis under deputy mayor Jordi William Carnes. After [Xavier Trias](/people/xavier-trias) won in 2011 he coordinated the socialist group, and he was also chief of staff to [Jaume Collboni](/people/jaume-collboni) once Collboni was the mayoral candidate. Miquel Iceta brought him into the party organization in 2016 despite some resistance from Collboni.

### Secretary of Organization

On 6 November 2016, at the PSC's 13th congress, Iceta named him secretary of organization, the post that had blocked a pact with Núria Parlon, mayor of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, after she challenged Iceta for the leadership. Antonio Poveda declined it and Parlon vetoed José Luis Jimeno; Illa, first secretary in the Vallès Oriental, was the compromise. Núria Marín, mayor of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, became deputy first secretary. The role was full-time from February 2017 and, by 2019, meant running a party of nearly 14,000 members.

On 28 October 2017, the day after the Parliament of Catalonia declared independence, he said Article 155 was being applied "with common sense" and had become unavoidable once Carles Puigdemont did not call an election and the chamber proclaimed a republic. He urged a change of course at the [Spanish government](/organizations/spanish-government)'s 21 December election, with Iceta already the candidate. In the summer of 2019 he was credited with local agreements with Esquerra and Together for Catalonia, including the PSC pact with Junts per Catalunya on Barcelona's provincial council.

After the November 2019 general election he negotiated for the [Spanish Socialist Workers' Party](/organizations/spanish-socialist-workers-party), alongside Adriana Lastra and José Luis Ábalos, on an abstention by Republican Left in the Congress of Deputies. A meeting on 28 November produced no agreement. On 2 January 2020 the parties recognized a political conflict over Catalonia's future and agreed to a bilateral dialogue table between the Spanish government and the Generalitat, clearing the way for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. Illa was appointed minister of health later that month.

## Minister of Health of Spain

### Appointment and the first wave

[King Felipe VI](/people/king-felipe-vi) appointed Salvador Illa Minister of Health on 12 January 2020, on a proposal from Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. The decree was published the next day, and Illa took the portfolio on 13 January. The same text gave consumer affairs and social rights to other ministers. Illa came from the organization of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia. The COVID-19 pandemic in Spain then dominated the portfolio.

On 26 February, with infections still treated as imported, Fernando Simón, director of [the Centre](/organizations/the-centre) for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, said the risk would generally be low or very low, while the ministry rated it moderate so transmission would not be missed. On 14 March, three days after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic, the government declared a nationwide state of alarm for 15 days. The government was the competent authority. Illa was one of four delegated ministers and held what the decree left outside defence, the interior and transport. Movement was limited to listed essential reasons, and civilian health authorities came under his direct orders where needed, while autonomous communities kept day-to-day management.

Simón was the daily technical spokesman beside the minister through the first wave and the reopening. Hospitals reported severe shortages of masks, gowns and gloves. On 31 March the union CSIF asked the Supreme Court of Spain to investigate Illa for offences against workers, injury and negligent homicide. It cited ministry figures of 12,298 infected health workers by 30 March, 14.4 percent of recorded cases, and at least six deaths, and said non-reusable equipment was being reused. The alarm was extended by later decrees and, after a de-escalation disputed with some regions, gave way to a "new normality" under Royal Decree-law 21/2020 of 9 June.

### Restrictions, procurement and vaccination

On 19 May the ministry ordered masks for people aged six and over in public whenever two metres could not be kept. It took effect on 21 May, with health and disability exceptions.

Emergency buying ran largely through the Instituto Nacional de Gestión Sanitaria (INGESA), using part of a 1,000-million-euro credit opened on 12 March. In May 2022 the Court of Auditors reviewed 73 emergency files from 2020 in the social, labour and social-security field, worth 551.2 million euros; INGESA accounted for about 538 million. It found the procedure lawful and the contracts tied to COVID-19, but execution problems in 22.44 percent of the INGESA files, including cancellations for contractor breach, unplanned changes and late deliveries, which it said could show weak checks on suppliers during a global shortage. Protective equipment cost 246.4 million euros, mostly masks. Average FFP2 prices fell from 2.62 euros in March to 1.40 in April, and one supplier of 56.2 million FFP2 masks accounted for 95.14 percent of spending on that type.

A separate inquiry, known as the Koldo case, concerned alleged commissions for mask contracts around Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos and his former adviser Koldo García. Before a Congress of Deputies committee on 22 April 2024, Illa said he had met García once, sent him to officials, and that no health-ministry body had spent "a single euro" with the firm Soluciones de Gestión. People's Party spokesman Elías Bendodo, citing the case file, said INGESA had awarded that firm a contract. Illa said a framework agreement had only homologated suppliers, including a joint bid with Ferrovial that was never carried out; Bendodo afterwards said Illa was lying.

On 25 October a second state of alarm answered a 14-day incidence of 349 per 100,000, with COVID-19 in more than 12 percent of hospital beds and 22.48 percent of intensive-care beds. Under the national government, regional presidents applied a night-time curfew from 23:00 to 06:00, which they could shift by an hour, a six-person cap on gatherings, and limits on travel between autonomous communities.

Vaccination began on 27 December 2020 with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, in step with other European Union states. The first 9,750 doses were divided among the regions, and Araceli Hidalgo, 96, received the first injection at the Los Olmos care home in Guadalajara. Illa called the day "the beginning of the end" but said the coming months would not be easy, and he set a 12-week aim of covering about 2.3 million people in care homes and front-line health work. The 14-day incidence had risen again above the ministry's extreme-risk threshold of 250 per 100,000.

### Resignation and later assessments

On 30 December 2020 Illa said he would head the Socialist list in the Catalonia election of 14 February 2021 and leave the cabinet before the campaign. He was dismissed on 26 January 2021. Carolina Darias, the territorial-policy minister who had coordinated the weekly meetings of regional health chiefs, succeeded him the same day, and Miquel Iceta took her previous post. Reuters then reported 56,208 recorded deaths and a 14-day incidence of 885 per 100,000; RTVE described hospitals as close to collapse. Pablo Casado, leader of the People's Party, criticized the timing as putting votes before lives, and his party and Ciudadanos called the ministry an electoral platform. Illa said he was leaving "with great sorrow", as he had promised; Sánchez called the tenure extraordinary and Illa honest.

On 18 December 2020 the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court refused to admit criminal complaints against members of the government, including complaints naming Illa. It held that authorship had not been shown and could not follow from office alone, said the refusal did not endorse mistaken decisions, and sent care-home deaths, protective equipment and faulty supplies to the ordinary courts. On 14 July 2021 the [Constitutional Court](/organizations/constitutional-court) of Spain partly upheld an appeal lodged in April 2020 by more than fifty deputies of Vox. It annulled the general confinement in the first alarm decree and words that let the health minister modify or extend certain commercial restrictions, and rejected the rest of the challenge. The judgment, issued with several dissents, held that a state of alarm may limit fundamental rights but not suspend freedom of movement for the whole population. On 28 December 2021, on Sánchez's proposal, Illa received the Grand Cross of the Order of [Charles III](/people/charles-iii).

## Leader of the opposition

### The 2021 election

The election to the Parliament of Catalonia on 14 February 2021 drew the lowest turnout of the series: 51.29% of 5,624,067 registered voters, against 79.09% in 2017. The Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC), with Salvador Illa as candidate, won the most votes — 654,766, or 23.03% of the valid vote — and 33 of 135 seats, tying the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) on seats; ERC took 605,581 votes (21.3%). Together for Catalonia (Junts) won 32 seats, Vox 11, the [Popular Unity Candidacy](/organizations/popular-unity-candidacy) (CUP) nine, En Comú Podem eight, Ciudadanos six and the People's Party of Catalonia three. ERC, Junts and the CUP together held 74 seats, above the absolute majority of 68.

Pere Aragonès of ERC failed to win investiture on 26 and 30 March, when Junts withheld its votes. On 21 May he was elected with 74 votes from ERC, Junts and the CUP; the other 61 deputies — PSC, Vox, En Comú Podem, Ciudadanos and the People's Party — voted against. He took office the following Monday. He said he would pursue independence without a fixed timetable and a negotiated referendum, and did not obtain the abstention he sought from En Comú Podem. Illa refused a hundred-day honeymoon, criticised a coalition text that omitted Spain and the financing system, and offered cooperation only on practical matters. Junts' Albert Batet called dialogue and confrontation compatible; Jéssica Albiach of En Comú Podem called the government a product of resignation.

### First secretary of the PSC

On 26 May 2021 the president of the Parliament, [Laura Borràs](/people/laura-borras), declared Illa leader of the opposition under article 77 of the chamber's rules, as president of the largest opposition group, Socialistes i Units per Avançar, the office defined by the 2008 law on the presidency and the government. With no rival in the primary, he had been designated the PSC's first secretary-elect on 27 October. An extraordinary congress in Barcelona proclaimed him first secretary by acclamation on 18 December; 927 delegates took part, and Miquel Iceta, first secretary since 2014 and by then Spain's culture minister, moved to the party presidency. The executive voted the next day created five deputy first-secretary posts and named Elia Tortolero spokesperson.

### Parliament, 2021–2024

In Madrid in January 2022 Illa said there would be neither a self-determination referendum nor an amnesty, and offered prosperity, fairer financing and more self-government instead. The day after the July 2023 Spanish election he still said an amnesty was not feasible within the rule of law; by 29 October, as Pedro Sánchez needed ERC and Junts, he called it a "yes" to coexistence and to the Constitution. ERC had treated that amnesty as non-negotiable and Junts' seven Congress deputies made it the price of supporting Sánchez, while the People's Party and Vox opposed it.

On 8 June 2022 the Parliament passed the law on official languages in non-university education by 102 votes to 29, with one abstention. ERC, Junts, the PSC and En Comú Podem kept Catalan as the usual language of teaching and treated Spanish as a curricular language without quotas, to be set school by school, after a Catalan high-court ruling, declared final that January, had required at least 25% of classes in Spanish. Vox, Ciudadanos, the People's Party and the CUP voted against it.

On 7 October 2022 Junts members voted to leave the coalition, 55.73% to 42.39%, on a turnout of 79.18% of 6,465 members. Borràs said they did not want a government that was not moving toward independence; Aragonès chose to govern alone rather than call an election. On 1 February 2023 ERC and the PSC unblocked the 2023 budget on conditions that included the Hard Rock leisure and casino project at Salou and Vila-seca, the B-40 ring road and a limited "modernisation" of Barcelona airport. En Comú Podem and the CUP opposed Hard Rock, and the pact was to sit alongside a separate ERC–Comuns agreement.

On 1 February 2024, with reserves below 16%, Aragonès extended a drought emergency to Barcelona and called it the worst in modern history. Illa asked why Catalonia was then in emergency and told the Catalan Water Agency to move faster; Junts demanded a change of course, while the CUP and Comuns tied the crisis to El Prat, Hard Rock and the fourth ring road. On 13 March amendments rejecting the 2024 budget passed 68–67: ERC had the PSC but not En Comú Podem, which wanted Hard Rock stopped, and the government would offer only a study of a drought moratorium. Aragonès called an election for 12 May. Illa welcomed an early vote; Jordi Turull of Junts called the decision sectarian and spoke of running Carles Puigdemont, and Albiach said Aragonès had acted as if he had a majority.

## The 2024 election and investiture

### Campaign and results

On 12 May 2024 Catalonia elected the Parliament of Catalonia. Salvador Illa led the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC); Carles Puigdemont headed Together for Catalonia (Junts) from outside Spain. With over 99 percent counted, Reuters reported 42 seats for the PSC, 35 for Junts, 20 for Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) under acting president Pere Aragonès, and a rise for the People's Party from 3 to 15. Turnout before the overseas count was about 58 percent. Illa spoke of a "new era," but no list, and no combination of Junts, ERC, the Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) and Catalan Alliance, reached the 68 seats of an absolute majority in the 135-seat chamber.

The Statistical Institute of Catalonia recorded 3,183,137 voters out of 5,754,952 electors (55.3 percent). Of 3,120,503 votes for candidacies, the PSC took 882,589, Junts 681,470, ERC 431,128, the People's Party 347,170, Vox 251,096, Comuns Sumar 184,297, the CUP 129,059 and Catalan Alliance 119,149. The Generalitat's count gave them 42, 35, 20, 15, 11, 6, 4 and 2 seats. That plurality did not form a government: a first ballot needs 68 votes, and failure by 26 August would have meant another election. Junts, ERC and the CUP had 59 seats together, 61 with Catalan Alliance.

### Agreements with ERC and Comuns

In late July the PSC and ERC published a 25-page pre-agreement. It promised "singular financing," not an economic concert: the Catalan Tax Agency would manage, collect, settle and inspect taxes borne in Catalonia, coordinated with the state and the European Union; a bilateral commission would define the model in the first half of 2025; and income tax would be collected in full during 2026, with a solidarity payment limited by ordinality. On language it provided a language-policy department, a national pact within 100 days with €200 million in the first year, and Catalan as the normal language of non-university teaching under each school's project, on pedagogical criteria. An ERC-chaired convention would discuss the political conflict and the amnesty.

On 2 August, 6,349 of 8,226 ERC members voted online (77 percent). The yes won with 3,397 votes (53.5 percent), against 2,847 (44.8 percent) and 105 blank (1.7 percent). The question was whether ERC should back the Socialist candidate in exchange for "fiscal sovereignty," protection of Catalan, the national convention and the other measures. Secretary-general Marta Rovira called it a "vigilant and demanding" yes. The Spanish Socialists' executive had accepted the pre-agreement.

On 31 July Jéssica Albiach gave the national council of Catalunya en Comú a separate investiture text, without ruling out entering government later. *[La Vanguardia](/organizations/la-vanguardia)* reported commitments to 55,000 protected homes by 2030, €350 million for emergency rental housing, equal rules for seasonal and room lets, fewer tourist flats, a register of large holders and rent-rule sanctions, a gradual sixth school hour, free meals, dropping Hard Rock and stopping the fourth ring road toward Granollers. Comuns held six seats. Illa later called both pacts investiture agreements, not agreements for the whole term.

### The investiture session

On the evening of 8 August the Parliament invested Illa as the 133rd president of the Generalitat de Catalunya, by 68 votes to 66. The PSC, ERC and Comuns voted in favour; Junts, the People's Party, Vox, the CUP and Catalan Alliance voted against. Puigdemont did not attend or delegate his vote.

That morning Puigdemont appeared in Barcelona for the first time since 2017, still wanted over misuse of public funds from the independence referendum. Near the Arc de Triomf he said he had come to show that "we're still here," then left rather than walk to Parliament. The Mossos d'Esquadra ran Operació Gàbia, and two officers were later arrested over his departure by car. Junts twice asked the Bureau to suspend the sitting; a PSC–ERC majority on the Bureau refused, and the afternoon resumed about ninety minutes late.

Albert Batet called Junts the pro-independence alternative and said the nation was more at risk under Illa, citing his 2017 backing for Article 155 of the [Constitution of Spain](/facts/constitution-of-spain). Alejandro Fernández promised the People's Party "absolute opposition" and said Illa was reviving the independence process. Laia Estrada, for the CUP, accused the PSC of a turn to the right and to Spanish nationalism. Ignacio Garriga, for Vox, said the pacts served to retain power and called the morning a "democratic anomaly." Sílvia Orriols, for Catalan Alliance, attacked ERC for supporting a "Spanish nationalist" president. Illa said he would govern "for everyone," legislate first with ERC and Comuns, and talk with Junts, the People's Party and the CUP, but not with Vox or Catalan Alliance.

On 9 August [Felipe VI](/people/felipe-vi), countersigned by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, appointed Illa by Royal Decree 839/2024 under Article 152.1 of the Constitution and Article 67 of the Statute of Autonomy. On 10 August, in the Saló de Sant Jordi of the Palace of the Generalitat, Parliament president Josep Rull read the decree and Aragonès placed the medal of office on Illa. Illa swore the Constitution in the formula pro-independence presidents had avoided for a decade, and said he would govern for everyone and reject "divisive, demagogic and populist" approaches.

## Presidency of the Generalitat

### Government formation

Salvador Illa took office as president of the Generalitat de Catalunya on 10 August 2024, in the Saló de Sant Jordi of the Palau de la Generalitat in Barcelona. The Parliament of Catalonia had invested him two days earlier with the votes of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC), Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) and Comuns. Josep Rull read the royal decree of appointment, and the outgoing president, Pere Aragonès, placed the medal of office on him. Illa promised fidelity to the king, the Constitution, the Statute and the "national institutions of Catalonia", and said he would unite Catalonia and serve it.

The cabinet sworn in on 12 August was a PSC minority government, not a coalition. Albert Dalmau, until then Barcelona's city manager, became conseller de la Presidència, the portfolio that coordinates the executive. Alícia Romero took the economy department and the singular-financing negotiation with ERC. Sílvia Paneque combined territory, housing and ecological transition with the spokesperson's role. Núria Parlon took Interior and Esther Niubó Education. A language-policy department required by ERC went to Francesc Xavier Vila, an independent who had held that brief under Aragonès; Sònia Hernández, also unaffiliated, took Culture.

### Budgets, financing and the economy

Through 2025 and until July 2026 the Generalitat used the prorogued 2023 budget. A 2026 bill lodged on 27 February was withdrawn before the debate on the whole text for lack of votes. On 8 January 2026 Madrid and the Generalitat announced an outline under which Catalonia would receive an extra €4.7 billion a year. Illa called it the best regional-financing agreement in history. Oriol Junqueras said a further round should raise Catalonia's VAT share, citing powers such as the Mossos d'Esquadra, and should still include full income-tax collection and a €17 billion write-off of Regional Liquidity Fund (FLA) debt. Junts per Catalunya prepared a total amendment because the model was not a Basque-style concert, and the People's Party opposed it.

A text signed on 19 May sought the model, and a 20 per cent FLA write-off, in 2027, with Congress legislating a "delegation of powers" over income tax. Romero said the Catalan Tax Agency was not ready and proposed more than €500 million for it over four years. The paper also revived an orbital railway, put up to €8 billion of state funds behind the 2020–2030 Rodalies plan, and replaced a consortium Congress had rejected with a company for state works. On 2 July the Parliament approved a budget of €49,162 million, which Romero called 22.8 per cent above the 2023 accounts, by 69 votes to 66. PSC-Units, ERC and Comuns voted yes, as did one Junts deputy by mistake; Junts, the People's Party of Catalonia, Vox, the CUP and Aliança Catalana voted no. They were the first budgets of the term.

By the 29 September general-policy debate the financing reform was still open, chiefly because Junts wanted an economic concert. On 5 October Pedro Sánchez dissolved the Cortes and called a general election for 29 November 2026, so the statutes the model required had not been enacted when the campaign opened on 13 November.

### Housing, transport, water and public services

In 2024 Illa set a target of 50,000 homes, and in 2025 he proposed municipal land for 214,000. On 29 September 2026 he announced further instruments, not a count of homes finished: €25 million to buy flats of people facing eviction and rent them back, €100 million for shared purchases with buyers over 40, and wider zero-interest loans. The May pact had entered €160 million a year for rehabilitating run-down housing and €50 million from the Catalan Finance Institute, without a figure for homes already finished under the pledge of 50,000.

On 12 January 2026 the government and the Spanish transport ministry presented Rodalies de Catalunya, owned 50.1 per cent by Renfe and 49.9 per cent by the Generalitat, to run Rodalies. Five board seats go to the Generalitat and four to Renfe; Òscar Playà, until then director of the Barcelona metro, was named chief executive. Lacking a licence and a safety certificate, the company was not expected to operate the network before 2027, and the service it would inherit was one of daily incidents. Forty-nine Alstom trains promised for 2026 were delayed to spring 2027, amid what the transport ministry called a crisis since January, including cable thefts over 70 kilometres. Transfer of the R1's track and maintenance, from Bifurcació-Sagrera to Maçanet-Massanes, was still unsigned on 22 October. Minister Óscar Puente called it "irrevocable" but said the November election could change the calendar; Adif would keep traffic control.

A drought of more than 1,600 days had ended by spring 2026, with reservoirs above 90 per cent after a low near 15 per cent. The government had announced €2.3 billion in water works to 2030 and, on 14 April 2026, a bill to add up to 280 cubic hectometres so that non-conventional sources could cover 70 per cent of supply in a future emergency. Desalination still needed Madrid's signature and had slipped: Tordera (60 hectometres, €290 million) to testing in 2030, Foix (30 hectometres, €300 million) to 2030, and La Muga (15 hectometres, €200 million) to 2032. Only 10.16 per cent of 827 municipal pipe-repair files were finished.

On 13 May 2025 Illa presided over the Pacte Nacional per la Llengua, budgeting €255 million in 2025 and at least €200 million a year to 2030, with an aim of 600,000 new speakers. Habitual use was given as 32.6 per cent. ERC, Comuns and the main language and social organisations signed; Junts, the CUP, the parties of the right and the teachers' union USTEC did not. The May budget deal promised school investment of €400 million by 2030, while Romero called teachers' pay claims unaffordable. In September Illa proposed recognising teachers' "public authority" and spending 6 per cent of GDP on education, which most opposition groups called unrealistic. A bilateral commission on 20 May agreed Spanish money to take the Mossos from about 22,000 officers to 25,000 in 2030, at €70,000 a year per new post, or €210 million a year for 3,000 places.

### Relations with Madrid, partners and the opposition

ERC and Comuns sustained the minority government without entering it, and both backed the 2026 budget on conditions: ERC linked its vote to financing, the tax agency, the orbital line and Rodalies, and in May Comuns still had to renew a February limit on speculative housing purchases. Junts voted against the accounts, rejected anything short of a full economic concert, and in April helped defeat the investment consortium in Congress; its spokesperson, [Miriam Nogueras](/people/miriam-nogueras), said the scheme left infrastructure "controlled from Madrid". The CUP, the People's Party of Catalonia, Vox and Aliança Catalana also voted no, and Junts and the CUP had stayed out of the language pact. The financing outline, the Mossos money and the rail transfers were negotiated with the government of Sánchez. Dissolution of Congress on 5 October left the financing statutes unpassed, and Puente had warned that the 29 November election could move the R1 timetable.

Chief of staff Eduard Rivas resigned on 30 October 2026. A Martorell court was investigating agreements between Esparreguera council, where he had been mayor, and the Fundación para la Inclusión Laboral, of which he was a patron, including whether money had paid private expenses. The Mossos took his phone in January. When the case became public in April, Illa kept his confidence. Secrecy was lifted on 29 October. The government said he was leaving of his own accord and that Illa thanked him; his circle said he maintained his innocence. Xavier Amor, secretary for local governments, replaced him.

## Political positions

### The national question, language and education

Illa has located Catalonia inside the 1978 Constitution of Spain and the Statute of Autonomy. As organization secretary of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia, he said on 28 October 2017 that Article 155 was being applied "with common sense" after Carles Puigdemont declined to call elections and the Parliament of Catalonia proclaimed a republic. He called the intervention inevitable and said the only legality in force was "constitutional and statutory."

He has rejected a unilateral independence referendum while treating the dispute as a political conflict inside Spain. In June 2021 he proposed that Catalan parties agree a text, possibly a new statute, and put that agreement, not independence, to a Catalan vote. He called secession "divisive" and said self-determination "is not applicable to Catalonia, because Catalonia is not a colony and Spain is a full democracy." On 29 May 2021 he told the PSC that Catalonia would be neither independent, nor covered by an amnesty, nor given a self-determination referendum. In January 2022 he repeated that neither would happen "because a majority of Catalans do not want it," and offered prosperity, fair financing and better self-government instead.

The amnesty line changed in 2023. Before Pedro Sánchez's investiture he asked PSC members to back an amnesty "without reservations," as "the best guarantee" that the *procés* would not return, "a yes to coexistence" and "a yes to the Spanish Constitution." In his investiture speech of 8 August 2024 he asked that the amnesty law be applied in an "agile, rapid" way and "without subterfuges." *El País* reported that speech as a defence of a plurinational Spain, with Catalonia cast as an open nation in that state and in a federal Europe.

Pro-independence critics have called this subordination to Madrid. In the 2024 campaign Puigdemont labelled him a "civil governor" of "the Catalan province" and Sánchez's role in the campaign a "low-intensity 155," an attempt "to govern Catalonia from La Moncloa." From the unionist side, Alejandro Fernández of the Catalan People's Party said in October 2024 that his party was [the alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) to "the leftist and nationalist plan of government that Salvador Illa has assembled," citing property rights, trilingual schooling and parental choice of school.

On language he has defended Catalan-medium immersion. In October 2026, after [Alberto Núñez Feijóo](/people/alberto-nunez-feijoo) promised to guarantee the teaching of Spanish and had advocated "cordial bilingualism" at about 50 percent, Illa said he wanted to end immersion, "one of the most emblematic elements of Catalan self-government," and that "Catalan is not to be touched." The July 2024 pre-agreement with Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya also included measures to revive Catalan and a negotiation of what the text called the current political conflict.

### Social and economic policy

That pre-agreement is his main statement on financing. *El País* described it as Catalonia leaving the common regime—which would require amending the regional-financing law—and collecting the state taxes paid in Catalonia, starting with income tax for the 2025 campaign, then paying the state for services and a solidarity contribution. ERC said ordinality was protected, so that redistribution would not leave a richer community behind a poorer one. In November 2024 Illa told the central government that this "singular" financing "is not against anyone." People's Party regional leaders called the July deal a break in the common treasury and a source of greater inequality.

Housing is the social priority he has stated most concretely. In the general-policy debate of 8 October 2024 he promised €4.4 billion for 50,000 public homes by 2030, with more land, faster building, public–private collaboration and aid for purchase and rent. The casino resort at Vila-seca and Salou was a condition of investiture rather than a scheme he promoted in office. The pre-agreement with Catalunya en Comú committed the PSC to reverse the 2014 cut, then supported by Convergence and the PSC, that had lowered the gambling tax from 55 percent to 10 percent for the project then called BCN World. Comuns presented the return to 55 percent as the way to stop Hard Rock.

On immigration he has used the language of reception. In his first Diada address, on 10 September 2024, he said Catalonia "has always been a land of welcome and will again be exemplary," and defined the task of government as services, housing, decent wages and governing "for everyone." In November 2026 he attacked Feijóo for opposing Catalan and then the amnesty, writing that this was "a curious way of understanding Catalonia."

## Personal life

Illa lives in La Roca del Vallès in a single-family house. In a May 2024 interview he said that his marriage to Marta was his second, that the household was the two of them, and that his daughter lived and worked independently in another European country with her partner; *La Vanguardia* named her Marina and gave her age as 23. Other reports name his wife Marta Estruch and describe her as working in marketing at Nestlé in Esplugues de Llobregat, but they do not agree on the children: *ABC* reported one daughter from the first marriage, a *La Vanguardia* account of the August 2024 investiture wrote of an adolescent daughter living with the couple, and *La Razón* wrote that Illa and Estruch had a daughter. Estruch has rarely been photographed with him; reported appearances include a 2022 Sant Jordi reception, the Ondas prizes, and an audience with [Pope Francis](/people/pope-francis) on 7 March 2024.

In a June 2025 interview for the 3Cat programme *Col·lapse*, recorded on 8 June at the church of Santa Agnès de Malanyanes in La Roca, he said that he believes in God, that he was brought up in a Catholic setting, and that he tries to live according to that faith. He said that he does not go to Mass every week but prays every day, in Catalan, which he called his mother tongue and the language he uses in private, and that he did not see that faith as incompatible with a second marriage. He has also said that he reads economics essays in English to keep up the language.

He supports RCD Espanyol. In a message for the club's 125th anniversary he recalled going as a child to Sarrià with his father, brothers and grandfather, said that his father had founded a *peña* in La Roca, and said that after about the age of 20 he stopped going regularly while keeping those loyalties, which he distinguished from the office of president of the Generalitat de Catalunya.

On the afternoon of Saturday 17 January 2026 he was admitted to the intensive care unit of Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron in Barcelona, with severe pain and loss of strength and sensation in his legs after going out to run. On 19 January doctors diagnosed osteomyelitis of the pubic symphysis and the obturator muscle, caused by *Streptococcus dysgalactiae*, an uncommon infection they described as potentially serious because it can lead to sepsis. He left at midday on Friday 30 January, walking with crutches, and continued intravenous antibiotics and physiotherapy at home under the hospital's home-care team; the usual course was put at about eight weeks. On 16 February he resumed work gradually at the Palau de la Generalitat. The hospital said that he had fully recovered his mobility, while antibiotics—still intravenous, and due to switch to oral—and rehabilitation continued; *El País* reported that he was still using a crutch, though less often.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/salvador-illa