Albert Castellanos, CEO of Catalonia Trade & Investment, appointed new President of the Assembly of European Regions

Albert Castellanos, CEO of Catalonia Trade & Investment and Secretary for Enterprise and Competitiveness of the Department of Business and Labour of the Government of Catalonia, has been appointed as the new President of the Assembly of European Regions (AER), replacing Magnus Berntsson (Sweden), who has held the post since 2017. This is the second time since its creation in 1985 that a Catalan representative has assumed the presidency of this organization.

The main objectives of Castellanos' new mandate include defending regional interests in the design and implementation of European policies, promoting networking between regions, exchanging best practices, and maximizing the visibility of the AER. Likewise, the Secretary will also work to promote the European agenda in regional terms, with a particular interest in the European innovation agenda, European collaborative projects, and its own, as in the case of Eurodyssey, one of the AER's most prominent programs.

Albert Castellanos has affirmed that "the consolidation of the European project must give much more value to all its richness and diversity if we want to be more than the sum of agreements between Member States, and the AER is an excellent platform to facilitate this." The Secretary thanked "the members of the General Assembly for their confidence in him to take over the chairmanship and for the work done by Magnus Berntsson at the helm over the past years, as well as for his always inclusive approach."

The Assembly of European Regions (AER) is the meeting place for regional actors from across the European continent. With nearly 200 member regions from 30 countries, the AER has been the voice of regional authorities since 1985 and has played a fundamental role in recognizing regions as key actors in the construction of the common European project.

The AER has had enormous historical importance for European regionalism since 1986 when the Council of Europe recognized it as a fundamental European organization representing the regions. Its fundamental values include promoting a prosperous, multiethnic, multicultural, and multilingual Europe based on sustainable development and territorial cohesion of the European continent.