ERC Places Toni Cruanyes's Husband in Salt City Council: Salary of €49,000

Amid the turmoil over the riots, Eugeni Villalbí's appointment as the press chief at the Salt city council has been announced. Villalbí is a former ERC deputy in Parliament and the husband of Toni Cruanyes. The presenter has been heavily criticized precisely for the focus in TV3's news reports on everything happening in Salt.

Eugeni Villalbí has taken on the role of press chief at the Salt city council. This is stated in the Official Gazette of the Province of Girona. This new position will earn him a monthly salary of 3,486 euros in 14 payments (48,804 euros annually).

The appointment took place on February 24, therefore prior to the events that occurred this week. Salt is a town of 34,000 inhabitants in the province of Girona. The high migrant concentration, which reached 48%, makes it one of the hot spots in Catalonia.

The eviction of an imam and his family after five years without paying rent sparked mobilizations that ended with street riots. The migrant community and radical organizations denounce urban speculation and institutional racism. For two consecutive nights, they threw stones at the police and set several containers on fire.

TV3 refused to offer an impartial perspective on the matter and reported strictly following the narrative of the far-left. The network's news reports, led by Toni Cruanyes, justified the street violence due to the housing conflict. Toni Cruanyes's husband now takes on the role of press chief in a town in full turmoil.

Since 2005 Living Off Politics

Eugeni Villalbí took on the role of deputy in 2021, replacing Roger Torrent. Previously, he had been the coordinator of the Junts pel Sí parliamentary group (2015-2017) and chief of staff of the ERC general secretariat, between 2020 and 2021. The fall of Pere Aragonès's government left him unemployed, but he quickly found a new job.

But not in the private sector, rather again in public administration. Villalbí has been living off politics since 2005, when he was appointed Director of the Program for Gays, Lesbians, and Transsexuals of the Generalitat of Catalonia. The following year, he took on the role of general secretary of Youth of the Generalitat.

Eugeni Villalbí is a civil engineer and has training in public relations and environmental consulting. He married TV3 presenter Toni Cruanyes, and they have a son and a daughter.