Her first contact with politics was during her student years. She explained in interviews that when she obtained a scholarship from the
Generalitat to study for her doctorate at university, her thesis supervisor, Josep Mir, told her that
Narcís Serra, then first secretary of the
PSC, was looking for someone to coordinate his secretariat who was not a party militant but an independent. Batet collaborated with him for two years. From 2001 to 2004 she directed the Carles Pi i Sunyer Foundation for Autonomous and Local Studies. In 2004, she ran as an independent in the ninth position on the Barcelona list of the Socialist Party of Catalonia for the
Congress of Deputies, headed by
José Montilla, and was
elected member of parliament for
Barcelona. In 2008 she joined the PSC where she works in the
Gràcia group of the Barcelona Federation. In the
2008 general election she was ranked eleventh on the list for Barcelona and renewed her seat, as well as in the
2011 general election in which she was ranked number eight. In February 2013 she broke the voting discipline of the socialist group together with other members of the PSC by voting in the Congress of Deputies in favor of two initiatives presented by
CiU and La Izquierda Plural (a coalition of
IU and
ICV with
EUiA and
CHA) to allow the holding of a
referendum in Catalonia on its future relationship with the rest of Spain. The socialist group fined undisciplined deputies with 600 euros. In July 2014, she was appointed Secretary of Studies and Programs in the Federal Executive Commission of the
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), assuming her first position in the organization. In the
2015 general election, she was number two on the PSOE list for
Madrid despite being a PSC militant, in tandem with Secretary-General
Pedro Sánchez. In addition to coordinating the electoral program for the elections, Sánchez entrusted her with the coordination of the team of experts that outlined its proposal for reforming the Constitution. In
February 2016, she was one of the people chosen by Sánchez to negotiate with other political forces in an attempt to set up an alternative government alliance to the
People's Party (PP). In April 2016, she agreed to head the PSC's list for Barcelona in the
general election called for the month of June, following the resignation of
Carme Chacón as a candidate again. In May 2016, it was confirmed that Batet would be a candidate without primaries after Carles Martí resigned as an alternate candidate. She was one of 15 PSOE-PSC deputies to vote against the investiture of Mariano Rajoy following the elections. == Minister for Territorial Policy and Civil Service ==