The early call for elections in Spain will not change Aliança Catalana's decision not to run. Neither will the good electoral prospects of Sílvia Orriols' party, which polls, such as this weekend's in La Vanguardia, place as the second force in Parliament. The resolution adopted by the governing committee is firm, although some members of the leadership do privately argue for running in the general elections so as not to leave their electorate orphaned. "There is no debate," insist party sources, however.

Aliança Catalana presented eight new candidates for the municipal elections during the II Municipalist Convention held in Ripoll two Saturdays ago. One of them is Jaume Valls, who will be the mayoral candidate for Vilassar de Mar. An incorporation, to say the least controversial, like other signings made by Sílvia Orriols' party, which never tires of repeating that they do not place “cordons sanitaires for the past” on their candidates and that what prevails is that they share the party's project “here and now”. “People evolve,” she adds when the profile of some list leaders is reproached to her.

Surprise at the Parliament's Board of Spokespersons. Aliança Catalana supported Vox this Tuesday in an attempt to prevent the spokesperson for the Spanish nationalist party, Joan Garriga, from being admonished for his insults against Lluís Companys, calling him a murderer. Despite the combined votes of these two parties and the PP, the proposal from Garriga's party did not go through and the sanction remains. Nevertheless, during the press conference before the media, Garriga thanked these two parties for their support for his request that the Bureau reconsider the sanction for violating the code of conduct.

This Friday, hundreds of anti-fascists demonstrated against the Vox event in Barcelona, where their leader, Santiago Abascal, had not appeared for two years. This has been the third mobilization by the far-left in just seven days. On Thursday the 10th, they took to the streets en masse to boycott the Aliança Catalana event at the Fossar de les Moreres, and the following day they did so again against the ultra-right group Núcleo Nacional, which held a rally with fascist salutes and slogans. In all three counter-demonstrations, incidents occurred and the Mossos d'Esquadra charged to prevent clashes with those organizing the events. But what are both sides seeking with their calls to action?

“I believe in Vilanova i la Geltrú. I believe in its people. And I believe that the best of Vilanova i la Geltrú is yet to be written,” stated Xavier Cusiné during his presentation as the mayoral candidate for Aliança Catalana on June 20th. He will not write it with Sílvia Orriols' party. As ARA has learned, Cusiné has decided to step down from the candidacy, citing "personal reasons," although disagreements with the party's organization secretary, Oriol Gès, could be behind his departure. "They couldn't even stand each other, and this isn't something new," sources from the party state.

Anti-processist, pro-Israeli and Islamophobic. With this calling card, it was not difficult to foresee that Joan Carretero would support Aliança Catalana, as has ended up happening. He is the first former minister of the Generalitat to publicly position himself in favor of Sílvia Orriols' party. He announced it in a tweet just after the Diada following the insults that the party leader received during the anti-fascist protests at the Fossar and the September 11th demonstration, and also due to an incident she suffered in Puigcerdà. "These days AC has gained, at least, 1 vote: the shouts of “Jew” at Sílvia Orriols and the tugging this morning by a Moorish son of a bitch (redundancy) who wanted to steal the chain I wear around my neck with the Magen David have made up my mind," he wrote in reference to the Star of David, the six-pointed symbol associated with the Jewish people and Judaism, which he wore around his neck. "Maybe they won't change anything, however, this pisses off everyone who has filled Catalonia with thieves, rapists and murderers. I continue with the thought that one cannot participate in the Spanish institutions in Catalonia. We will annoy the processists," he added in the tweet.

Neither ideas, nor project, nor future. This is the diagnosis made by the opinion group Ripoll Futur!, which was created four years ago to talk about the challenges of the Ripoll capital and which is now considering presenting a candidacy in the next municipal elections. Its promoters were Alícia Reina; Eudald Casas, president of ERC in Ripoll; Pere Jordi Piella, former PSC mayor from 1979 to 1993, and the journalist Jordi Altesa, but now they already total about twenty people eager to collaborate. "We are now enough to consider making the leap to institutional politics, although there is fear because Aliança is a steamroller," says Altesa, who acts as spokesperson for this civic movement that brings together people of a progressive nature. The polarization experienced in Ripoll, between detractors and supporters of Mayor Sílvia Orriols, is an obstacle to people getting involved, as the precursors admit.

"We have won and we have ensured that Núcleo Nacional could not hold their event." In this way, one of the members of the Anti-fascist Coordinator of Barcelona celebrated that the far-right organization had not been able to hold the rally at Plaça Mossèn Jacint Verdaguer, which the ultra-rightists had renamed with the Spanish version of the poet's name in their calls. The eighty fascists who supported the call had to settle for holding their event at the corner of Carrer Mallorca and Roger de Flor, a hundred meters away from the square. They were prevented from doing so by the three thousand anti-fascists, the majority from the pro-independence left, who managed to occupy the square after dodging various police checkpoints.

Aliança Catalana was able to hold the floral offering at the Fossar de les Moreres normally last year. About thirty militants from Arran tried to access the historic site to boycott the event, but the Mossos d'Esquadra prevented them from doing so. This Diada, however, things have not been so calm.

The failed outcome of the Process has driven the pro-independence parties into division, with an open confrontation. Neither have the entities escaped this escalation of mutual recriminations. The Assembly, moreover, has suffered internal fractures. In recent years, two sectors with different strategies have disputed control of the organization: those in favor of waging an electoral battle and those who believed it should remain neutral. The former have created Solidaritat per la Independència and the latter lead the organization. Both sides have united this Tuesday to call for unity and attendance at the Diada, with a family photo that included all the people who have presided over the entity since its foundation until today.

While traditionalist left-wing and right-wing forces across Europe are "shocked" by the overwhelming victory of Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Saxony-Anhalt, far-right parties are not hiding their joy. Also here at home. Aliança Catalana has shown its happiness for the triumph of the AfD candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, in this state of the former East Germany.

Aliança Catalana presented last Wednesday the lawyer Meritxell Feliu as mayoral candidate for Lleida, who was on the Junts lists in the last European elections after having been a member of Unió and Demòcrates. And on Friday, the Islamophobic party announced what is its latest candidate, Lluís Areny, who will lead the list in Sant Quirze del Vallès. Although in the last elections he ran for an independent list, Areny, the party's communications secretary, was a member of Junts from 2018 to 2021.

On June 28, Aliança Catalana fired its candidate in Figueres because he was maintaining a romantic relationship with a former 16-year-old student of his whom he had met while giving a talk on sports management. Arnau Liesa, born in 1995 and 30 years old, was not just another head of the list. He was one of the first mayoral candidates the party announced and he had the unconditional support of the leadership, as evidenced by the fact that he was the organization secretary for the Alt Empordà region. He was a rising star and was aiming to also be in a leading position on the Girona list for Parliament.

Hundreds of people gathered this Wednesday in Barcelona due to the migration crisis in Ceuta, but unlike other cities in the State, in the Catalan capital they concentrated in two opposing sides. Half a thousand anti-fascists stood up to the call supported by Vox and Núcleo Nacional, but also the PP, which defended the Spanish nature of the autonomous city and advocated for the expulsion of all the immigrants who still remain there. Tension did not take long to arrive.

Josep Manel Busqueta (Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, 1972) was one of the CUP deputies who most opposed the investiture of Artur Mas in 2015, and the CUP's refusal to invest him led him to leave Parliament in compliance with the agreement with Junts pel Sí for the investiture. The other resigning deputy was Julià de Jòdar, who leaned towards voting in favor of Mas. The two departures sought to balance the different sectors of the CUP, amidst great internal tension.

In s’Alguer, the cove where the new Estrella Damm advertisement was filmed, one person lives all year round. This is Miquel Carós (Palamós, 1948), who has been living for twelve years in one of the fishermen's houses with coloured doors in this spot of crystal-clear waters on the Costa Brava. Now he is no longer the sole inhabitant. Six years ago, another man settled there with his son. None of the three would be living there if Franco had not died on November 20, 1975. "It was close, the machines were already prepared to demolish the shacks, but since he died, everything stopped," he explains.

Like many other young people, Nabil Doubrik arrived from Morocco by boat. He was only 16 years old. The lack of opportunities led him to undertake a journey in which he risked his life because in the Atlas village where he was born he had no future: "If in general in Morocco it is complicated, in the southeast even more so," he explains, while making it clear that his family did not endorse his plan. "I was not aware of the risk and at first my parents told me no, but over time they ended up accepting that I leave".

Tension remains high between Italy and Spain over the Ceuta migratory crisis. The Italian government has denounced Spain's decision to impose border controls at ports and airports on passengers arriving from Italy as "totally unacceptable" and "incomprehensible." This was stated this Sunday in an interview with the newspaper La Stampa by the Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani. The former President of the Eurochamber criticized Pedro Sánchez for making the decision "solely as retaliation, without reason, harming tourism".

New setback for Sílvia Orriols. The Anti-Fraud Office of Catalonia (OAC) has opened an investigation into the mayor of Ripoll for alleged irregularities in the hiring of her daughter as a local police officer. The OAC procedure responds to a complaint, which has been admitted for processing and now moves to an investigation phase, in which it will be assessed whether it has merit. Last week, both in the plenary session and the following day in a press conference without questions, Orriols denied having influenced the hiring of her daughter as a local police officer and defended that she obtained "the best grade in a regulated selection process" for an emergency position.

It is often said that in politics everything has been seen: unnatural alliances, sudden changes of position or leaders who move to another party. In fact, moving from one party to another is not exceptional in Catalonia. With the 'Procés', leaders from the PSC or ICV joined ERC, representatives from Cs joined the PP with the decline of the orange party, and now Junts officials are moving to Aliança. What is not usual are the changes of allegiance between parties located at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.