Josep Maria Salvatella i Suñer, former mayor of Llançà and former deputy of the Parliament of Catalonia, has passed away at the age of 88. The CiU politician led the City Council for 24 years, between 1979 and 2003, and combined this institutional career with a previous trajectory as a teacher and director of the public school Pompeu Fabra in the municipality.
His figure leaves a dual mark on Llançà and l'Alt Empordà because his public career was sustained for decades on two different fronts. Before consolidating himself in municipal and parliamentary politics, he had already spent 29 years in the classroom, an unusual continuity for a local leader with six consecutive majorities.
Salvatella combined 24 years as mayor and 11 as deputy in the Parliament
Born in Figueres on October 16, 1937, Salvatella graduated from the Escola de Magisteri in Girona. In 1959, he began working as a teacher at the public school Pompeu Fabra in Llançà, and between 1976 and 1988, he was the director of the center.
A year after joining Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya in 1978, he won the mayoralty of Llançà in the first democratic municipal elections of 1979. He held the position for six consecutive terms until 2003, after being re-elected in 1983, 1987, 1991, 1995, and 1999.
During that period, he also held supramunicipal responsibilities. He was a provincial deputy between 1987 and 1992, with responsibilities in education and culture, and served as second vice-president of the institution in the last two years of that period.
Later, he moved to the Parliament for the constituency of Girona. He obtained a seat in 1992, 1995, and 1999 and remained in the Catalan chamber for 11 years, until 2003.
His parliamentary term included culture, fishing, and the Cap de Creus law
In his second parliamentary term, he served as secretary of the cultural policy commission. In his third term, he held the vice-presidency of the study commission on the situation of fishing in Catalonia, a matter particularly linked to the northern coast of Girona.
His time in Parliament was also linked to an initiative with territorial impact in the region. Salvatella contributed to promoting the law declaring Cap de Creus a natural park, a key area for municipalities such as Llançà and Cadaqués.
Beyond politics, he developed a literary work focused on l'Alt Empordà. He published titles such as cultural content about Empordà and also maintained journalistic activity as a columnist for El Punt, among other media outlets.
Teaching and literature accompanied his entire public career
His professional journey had begun long before entering institutional politics. The Pompeu Fabra public school in Llançà was his main teaching destination from 1959, and he remained there even after taking over the direction of the center in 1976.
That educational facet later coexisted with his literary production, also linked to the Empordà region. His bibliography includes A la posta de sol, from 1976, Planes de l'Empordà, from 1994, and references to local heritage in later works about Llançà and the Empordà landscape.
Among his published books are Llançà, de festa, from 1995, De la pàtria més bella i estranya, from 1998, Sol ponent, from 2000, Rodes i creus, from 2002, Des d'un vell setembre, from 2004, and Empordà: alga i ginesta, from 2006.