This will be the second Island Festival under the Government

Madrid / BarcelonaOn his first Diada, Salvador Illa had been landing at the Palau de la Generalitat for just over a month and decided maintain the bulk of the events that Pere Aragonès's executive had preparedThis year's event will be the first to which the Socialist leader has put his stamp, that of "diversity, plurality, and unity" in Catalonia. The Catalan government presented this Tuesday the institutional events for this September 11th, which will be represented in a poster—the work of artists Ignasi Roviró, Roger Orriols, and Jordi Farrés, who form the Partee creative studio—in which they have "reinterpreted" the four Catalan stripes with diverse artistic expressions. "The four Catalan stripes reflect the diversity, plurality, and unity that unite us as a country," defended the Minister of Territory and Government spokesperson, Sílvia Paneque, at a press conference following the executive council meeting.

The institutional events of the Diada will begin the day before, with the traditional raising of the flag in the Parliament, but this year the presentation of the Gold Medal of the Catalan parliament will be in October. On September 10, Illa will also give his institutional speech as president of the Generalitat. Last year, the socialist leader took the opportunity to claim Catalonia as a land of welcome and put the focus on the migration phenomenon, in the first National Day speech by a non-separatist president in fourteen years.

The government's institutional event will not be held at the Four Columns of Puig and Cadafalch on Montjuïc, as it was a year ago, but at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (TNC). The event aims to emphasize the "social and cultural reality of Catalonia" to defend Catalonia as a "living, committed, diverse country" that works for "coexistence and social cohesion." "Representing plurality and social diversity through artistic expression," summarized the event's artistic director, Marta Bayarri. Figures such as Paco Candel will be represented, as a "symbol of coexistence and integration in Catalonia," and will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Catalan cultural congress at the end of the Franco dictatorship. Artists such as Núria Guiu, Queralt Lahoz and Ignasi Terraza, Àngel Llàcer, Ven'nus, Pemi Fortuny, the Friends of the Arts and Antonio Orozco will participate, and the Castellers de Vilafranca will perform.

No plenary session in Congress

At the same time, unlike last year, Congress will not be packed on September 11th. The PSOE has avoided having it coincide with the Diada, which falls on a Thursday, concentrating the debates scheduled for next week on the two preceding days. The objective is, on the one hand, to make it easier for Catalan deputies to attend events in Catalonia. The Socialists, with the support of Sumar at the lower house's table, have promoted this change, which received the approval of the board of spokespersons this Tuesday. Parliamentary sources point out that cramming all the matters into two days instead of three—the usual length of plenary sessions—is not an exceptional practice and recall that it was done on multiple occasions during the previous session.

However, with this gesture, the PSOE also avoids jeopardizing the approval of laws that should have been debated next Thursday due to the absence of pro-independence deputies. A year ago, the seven deputies marched en bloc from Congress to attend the 11th of September demonstration. One of the issues that will be voted on in next week's plenary session is the validation of the decree law extending birth permitsand childcare. It will be on Tuesday afternoon, not Thursday morning. Another issue that is being avoided on Thursday is the full debate on reducing the working week to 37.5 hours, which Junts still vetoes, although Sumar emphasizes that negotiations continue, even though there is currently no agreement to prevent Carles Puigdemont's party from overturning Yolanda Díaz's flagship measure.

The decision to avoid holding a plenary session coinciding with the Diada (National Day) has not pleased either the PP or Vox, who criticized it last week when the proposal became known. The spokesperson for the Popular Party in the Lower House, Ester Muñoz, argued that "in 47 years" of democracy, it had never been changed for that reason, and it has not been done either when it coincided with the celebrations of the festivities in other autonomous communities.