They say Nabokov used to tell his students the following: "Do not inflate ignorance with eloquence." As is evident, Trump would not have attended class. Never before had a US president caused so much bewilderment in the markets, among allies, enemies, and his own electorate. His contradictory statements cause erratic movements in the stock markets and are wearing down the patience of traditional allies, whom he insults in a frivolous and puerile manner. Added to the insults directed at allies who do not allow themselves to be dragged into a war for which no one consulted them, are the threats of a neighborhood thug, such as sending Persian civilization back to the Stone Age, exactly where the president of the great superpower seems to mentally come from. He has also not shied away from threatening to leave NATO, even though the decision theoretically depends on the US Congress.

There are unjust wars, wrong wars, and avoidable wars. But there is a worse one: war without purpose. This is where we find ourselves.

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The president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, presented a budget proposal to force negotiations with ERC, but the gamble backfired. The first lesson of this political crisis, which has led him to withdraw the budget proposal, is that the government cannot act as if it has a majority it does not. The investiture agreement brought Illa to the presidency of the Generalitat, but he needs to negotiate and uphold agreements to continue making progress in the legislature.

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We can't expect Trump to have read the classics, but we could at least hope he hadn't purged the entire American intelligence service. "War is a chain of accidental events that no man can control," Tolstoy wrote in War and PeaceIn his fresco on the Napoleonic Wars, Tolstoy insisted that conflicts rarely follow the plans of generals or rulers. Armies move according to strategies and doctrines, but history often advances through unexpected deviations: miscalculations, rash actions, accidents, or strokes of luck. War is, to a large extent, the realm of the unpredictable. This is why wars are so difficult to control once they have begun. Every move has new consequences, every response provokes a possible escalation, and every gesture can trigger unforeseen events. Wars spread geographically, politically, economically. And here we are. The power of uncertainty is especially visible today in the Middle East. Since the attack of October 7, 2023, the region has been undergoing one of its most profound reconfigurations, and in this scenario, the US and Israeli attack on Iran is central and has unpredictable consequences.

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Jordi Hereu (Barcelona, ​​1965) has been the Minister of Industry and Tourism since 2023, in a legislature marked by an unstable and volatile geopolitics that affects the day-to-day operations of factories and the tourism sector. Now, the focus is on the war in the Middle East following the US and Israeli attack on Iran, which has caused an immediate increase in oil and gas prices. He is also a former mayor of Barcelona who keeps the city and Catalonia very much in mind, especially during recent crises such as the commuter rail and freight crises, recalling his first job at the Port of Barcelona when the Logistics Activity Zone (ZAL) was just getting started.

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"Trump's best foreign policy? Not starting wars. JD Vance The Wall Street Journal (March 2, 2023)

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If we were to adapt Tolstoy's idea to monarchy, we could formulate it thus: all stable monarchies are similar; each monarchy in crisis is so in its own way.

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As the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell (Pobla de Segur, 1947) experienced firsthand one of the most serious moments in recent European history: the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now, four years into the war and with the European Union, threatened on several fronts, facing an existential challenge, Borrell speaks to ARA in his office at CIDOB, the organization he chairs.

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The Enlightenment is not an outdated and obsolete chapter in the history of ideas, but rather the normative core of liberal democracy. It is, above all, the political commitment to replacing submission to tradition, dogma, and the whims of power with autonomy, and to replacing authoritarianism with critical thinking. Kant summarized it when he said that the Enlightenment is "humankind's emergence from its self-imposed immaturity." And with the advance of reactionary darkness, we must remember that light is preferable to darkness and that the defense of democracy continues.

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George Steiner warned that civilization is a very thin layer: beneath the skin of culture, there is always the harshness of the elements. The European welfare state was, in essence, a response to this fragility, a system designed to reduce individual exposure to economic risk through strong public institutions and stable redistribution mechanisms. For decades, the model worked. Sustained growth, increased productivity, and balanced demographics. These conditions allowed for the expansion of social rights without jeopardizing fiscal stability. Today, the framework is different. Potential growth is lower, the population is aging, and pressure on structural spending is increasing. In this new context, it is worth asking whether a welfare state, which is the essence of our European model, is sustainable. In Catalonia and Spain, it depends fundamentally on four variables: productivity, the labor market, public funding, and the tax structure. Is the economy productive enough?

A state's capacity to sustain universal public services is directly linked to productivity. More productive economies generate higher wages and, therefore, greater tax revenue without the need for a significant increase in taxes. In the case of Catalonia and Spain, average productivity remains below that of the main countries in the European region. A significant portion of economic activity is concentrated in low value-added, labor-intensive sectors. This model is capable of generating employment but with limited revenue. The consequence is structural: with low-wage jobs, even if they have high value (such as elder care), the capacity of governments to expand or even maintain the current level of social spending is reduced. Without a transition towards capital-, technology-, and knowledge-intensive activities, the growth in public revenue will be insufficient to absorb demographic and social pressures.

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For years, Jeffrey Epstein was part of an exclusive world. A world of money, private jets, prestigious universities, foundations, political connections, and a shared belief that certain questions—the uncomfortable ones—are impolite. Convicted of sex crimes, Epstein wasn't expelled from that universe. The crime was simply ignored.

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Catalonia is experiencing a rail and road collapse unbecoming of an advanced economy. When commuter trains stop running, freight traffic to Europe grinds to a halt and the AP-7 motorway is closed; when the AVE high-speed train fails to provide effective and reliable service, the country grinds to a halt and the credibility of the government—which has repeatedly promised investments that never materialize—is seriously damaged. Public outrage at this debacle is more than understandable: no one should be held hostage by a failing public transport system without accountability. Every day of logistical chaos inflicts damage on the productive economy and erodes public trust. Catalan infrastructure has long been operating at its limit, and every serious incident has a direct impact on the credibility of institutions and the economy. The five-day closure of the AP-7—a key artery carrying most of the country's freight traffic—has triggered a chain reaction across the entire road network: paralyzing the AP-7 is tantamount to strangling one of Catalonia's main economic arteries. Similarly, the constant breakdowns on the commuter rail network not only frustrate users but also reduce working hours and productivity across the country. This situation is typical of an underdeveloped environment, not the competitive economic engine that Catalonia aspires to be. Companies face increased logistics costs, and workers are not in control of their time. Inadequate infrastructure acts as a drag on economic growth and the quality of life for citizens.

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There are phrases that jokingly disguise what is a fundamental idea that inspires the work at ARA. Our mission statement is to practice free and committed journalism that connects with a conscious community. "We are a community, not a sect," and we expressed this at the beginning of Focus: The Solutions Forum, a conference where we brought together more than a thousand people at the CCCB for a day and a half. However, in these dark times, the difference is crucial. A sect only wants loyalty; a community wants critical thinking. A sect imposes a narrative; a community informs itself without fear, discusses, compares, questions, and—if necessary—corrects. And if anything is at stake today, it is precisely that: the collective capacity to maintain critical thinking and sound judgment. To keep a cool head when the world is overheating. To stay informed and not shy away from the truth when the values ​​of liberal democracy and Europeanism are in danger.

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Journalist Sylvie Kauffmann opened Enfoquem, the new forum held by ARA this Friday and Saturday with the aim of offering a positive and constructive perspective on some of the most pressing issues that concern us. An experienced correspondent and former director of Le Monde, reporter for the prestigious France Presse agency... Kauffmann has a long enough historical perspective not to be able to ignore its warnings: European values ​​will have to be defended, sacrifices will have to be made.

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They are men of a certain age, white, seemingly successful—if success is measured by bank accounts—and who share a predatory view of life, human relationships, and power. It's not always easy to quickly escape the clutches of a predator, and in the meantime, it's necessary to learn how to deal with those who are accustomed to buying or taking what they want. We're not going to talk about Julio Iglesias, but we will talk about Donald Trump. This is a lesson for Europe.

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For many years, the autonomous communities knew exactly how much money they would have to prepare their budgets for the following year thanks to a figure written inside an envelope given to the Secretary of Economy before the summer. Literally. This was done at the end of the meeting of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council held in Madrid, where the Spanish government holds the deciding vote, dominating any decision. The communities under the common regime accepted this, while the chartered communities remained observers with voice but no vote, because they didn't need to. Incredibly, a white envelope containing a mysterious figure was handed out, announcing how much of the money collected in Catalonia would be transferred to the central government for spending in Catalonia. Spending on what? On community responsibilities, basically public services such as healthcare, education, social services, and security. This is how the system works: controlling tax collection and transferring funds according to the whims of the central government's interests through an opaque and arbitrary system that could never be predicted with certainty. In 2008, Cristóbal Montoro took advantage of the debt crisis to push Catalonia to the brink of bankruptcy and blackmail it by threatening to withhold the salaries of hundreds of thousands of public employees. Chronically underfunded, the Generalitat (Catalan government) had been forced to go to the markets and borrow to provide services. When the markets closed due to the crisis, Montoro saw an opportunity to tighten spending and stifle management. The 2008 crisis not only shook the Catalan economy; it structurally altered the financial relationship between the Generalitat and the Spanish State. In this context of falling revenues and virtually impossible access to the markets, the Spanish government created the Regional Liquidity Fund (FLA), a mechanism initially conceived as a way to rescue liquidity so that the autonomous communities could pay their debts and suppliers. But the political translation of that decision is clear: when an autonomous community cannot finance itself normally, it becomes dependent on the State for funds.

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Visibly pleased with the regional financing proposal presented by Spanish Vice President María Jesús Montero, but aware that it's impossible to obtain 100% of what they want, the Catalan Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero (Caldes d'Estrac, 1976), received ARA at the Palau de la Generalitat, convinced that Catalonia will succeed. She also stated that she doesn't see it as impossible for the proposal to go ahead.

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The president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, is boasting about the agreement reached on the new financing model, emphasizing that no other Catalan government has ever achieved such high levels of economic sovereignty.

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It was impossible for Juan Carlos Unzué to attend the ARA celebration where he was symbolically presented with the sixth Carles Capdevila award for his work in raising awareness of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the dreaded ALS, a disease that the former player has suffered from for over five years. Although he sent an emotional and assertive message of gratitude, We were finally able to present him with the award in person during an interview in which he reflects on his fight to improve care for people with illnesses like his, as well as his sporting life and, above all, his perspective on life and the values he uses to cope. Unzué, whose illness has already forced him to give up his work as a sports commentator, has used his fame to help bring the issue of care and the enormous cost of this debilitating illness to the forefront of the political agenda, which has contributed to the approval of [the relevant legislation]. a law that specifically guarantees financial support for the most serious cases, It streamlines procedures and ensures better training for healthcare personnel. He welcomed us a few days before Christmas to his apartment on the outskirts of Barcelona. He was accompanied at all times by his wife, with whom he has shared his life since they were very young, and by a family that is about to grow with a grandchild. In Unzué's home there are many difficulties, but also great humor and a lot of generosity. The former goalkeeper excitedly described the car trip to Pamplona to spend the Christmas holidays with his large family, headed by his mother, Camino. Unzué made it very easy for us: he is exactly as he was. Precise, generous, a fighter. And he has a common sense that leaves you speechless with useless words.

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He is a flamboyant leader, tailor-made for turbulent times. He is chaos itself, and chaos feeds him. Trump has used Delta Force to turn reality into a movie, and after capturing the Venezuelan dictator, he paraded him across television screens worldwide, first by plane and then in an armored vehicle through the streets of a New York that politically resists him. The situation is becoming clearer. It will take time for details and the full picture to emerge, but the pieces are falling into place. The army, the same one that failed to prevent the assault and didn't even appear in the initial hours, supports Vice President Delcy Rodríguez. The Vice President's brother, Jorge Rodríguez, head of the National Assembly, and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello maintain Chavismo's civilian and military control over the country. Washington's message is clear: if they cooperate by granting US access to oil, they will save their own skins. Meanwhile, the legal machinery is being set in motion to prosecute Maduro. This process could foreshadow further actions in Washington's sphere of influence. When international law no longer prevails, why not take action against Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua, or Panama?

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