Madrid, March 5, 2021.- The Minister of Territorial Policy and Public Service, Miquel Iceta, presided this noon the act of taking office of senior positions of the ministry, in which he defended that “to obtain results you have to have above all a good team, prepared, with experience and able to work together”.

“I had to make a good team and I made a very good team,” he said. The Secretary of State for Territorial Policy and Public Service, Víctor Francos Díaz; the Under-Secretary, Alberto Herrera Rodríguez; the Director of the Minister’s Office, Mar Román Martínez; the Director General of Public Governance, Olivié Bayón Cespedes; and the Technical Secretary Ignacio de Loyola of Domingo Valenzuela have taken office. The minister has valued the “consolidated training, experience and capacity” of all of them.

He also thanked the Secretary General of Territorial Coordination, Myriam Álvarez, and the Secretary General of Public Service, Luis Javier Rueda, for their work, highlighting their “solvency and rigor”. As he explained, “few changes have been made, so that the teams are stable and the reforms remain in time.”

“Together we are stronger”

Iceta explained that the last year of the pandemic has revealed a finding that it will apply throughout its mandate: “Together we are stronger and working better together.”

The minister has shelved the two bases of the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Public Service. On the one hand, he stressed that it is “the ministry of covenants, agreements, cooperation.” He has also defended “the importance of the role of public servants, fellow citizens who dedicate the best of their time to the service of the community.”

In this regard, he has advanced that next week the first meetings with the unions will be held to address interinity and reform the basic status of the official. “For a fixed job, we need fixity,” he said, “we are aware of the problem and we are going to address it.”

The minister has assured that the process will be addressed with the autonomous communities and with the local entities. The autonomous communities concentrate the problem of interinity to a greater extent, specifically in health and education services, he said.

Pacts and consensuses

The minister stressed that since his appointment, he has signed 13 agreements with autonomous communities “that have avoided filing appeals for unconstitutionality.” “Our relationship is very good, very positive,” he said.
Iceta has defended the federal nature of the state, which has highlighted the coexistence between different levels of government: “What we do is seek agreements, cobogernanza, cooperation, federalism.”

In addition, he referred to the role of municipalities. In this regard, he stressed that progress will continue to be made in the elaboration of the basic Statute of the municipalities with the lowest population, “so that they can exercise their functions and reduce the effects of depopulation”.

The minister ended his speech by insisting on putting the citizens at the center of all action, “to serve them better”, and highlighting his commitment to “dialogue, negotiation, pact and cooperation”.