Aena digs in. Aena president, Maurici Lucena, on Thursday once again shut the door on any real transfer or co-management of Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat airport and, at most, agreed to study for Catalonia an body similar to the Basque one: bilateral, yes, but only consultative and without decision-making capacity. The airport network will continue to be managed from the center, with unified criteria, and communities can be heard, but they do not decide.Aena defends that the integrated management of the Spanish airport network allows for the coordination of investments, tariffs, operation, and planning of the whole, and recalls that 49% of its capital is in private hands, so any transfer of management would open a political, regulatory, and probably judicial conflict.From the directive logic, the argument is understandable. From the territorial logic, it is not. Today, an airport can no longer be seen merely as a transport infrastructure. It is a first-rate economic lever. It orders tourist flows, connects business ecosystems, influences conferences, investment, talent, and international projection. And all of this impacts a specific territory, not an administrative abstraction. The airport belongs to a network, but its effects fall on a determined city, region, and economic model.Here Catalonia is entirely right to demand more than just being heard. If the Generalitat wants to guide its tourism policy, it needs to intervene on one of its main entry channels. A territorial policy for tourism or the promotion of certain international markets cannot be designed without impacting the infrastructure that conditions these movements.Centralized management can make sense in aspects such as security, air navigation, network technical coordination, or regulatory homogeneity. Nobody disputes this. But the economic impact of an airport should be decided by its regional government. This is where the Spanish model goes wrong.Barcelona Airport needs a strategic direction linked to the interests of Catalonia. The role that Barcelona should play as a business, trade fair, and scientific hub corresponds to Catalans.If a territory bears the urban, environmental, economic, and social costs of an airport, it must have the capacity to intervene in its orientation. Today's economic Europe increasingly operates through metropolitan regions, logistical hubs, and territorial production systems. Continuing to treat airports as a piece moved solely from Madrid reflects an old idea of power and an overly centralized vision of the economy.

I will tell you a real anecdote.A close relative submitted their final master's thesis a month ago. The center ran the thesis through Turnitin, a program that calculates the probability that a thesis was generated by AI. If it's very high, they reject it and require it to be redone. It came out at 8%.The thing is that when we received the correction from the tutor, it seemed a bit strange to us. It was too impeccable and with somewhat baroque expressions. Strangely precise points to correct. How strange, we said to ourselves! We uploaded it to a detector. Result: 80% probability of being AI. I promise it's true.It's no reproach! I think what the tutor did is perfect, as long as he had read the work and polished the AI's correction. But the anecdote shows us that it is absurd to try to expel artificial intelligence from the educational system.It happened with the calculator, and with the internet. And with Google! Do you remember when it was forbidden to use search engines for schoolwork? Little by little we saw that the issue was not spending three hours looking for a piece of data that could be found in thirty seconds. The important thing, from an educational point of view, was to know what to do with that data.Introducing AI into the educational system is quite a challenge. We must differentiate between using a tool and using thought. A student can use AI and force themselves to order ideas, compare approaches, correct an argument, imagine examples, or improve a complex theory. To think!The problem is the student who doesn't think, only copies or pretends a competence and delivers an empty text.So before he will have to learn to write, of course. You cannot put a child in front of an AI before they learn to write well, to read, to order ideas, to sustain arguments... Just as you don't teach to use a calculator before knowing the times tables, we will have to introduce AI after the student has achieved these skills.Once this threshold is overcome, introducing AI will allow us to develop in our young people the skills that are already most in demand in the labor market: judging, refining, correcting, reinterpreting, contrasting, personalizing…Therefore, this is not about whether the student can use AI. The question is at what age they start using it, how they should use it, and to develop which skills. We will have to design exercises in which AI raises new skills: asking for processes, demanding intermediate versions, introducing oral debate, having a student explain why they have accepted a suggestion and why they have rejected another.This is the future. And it will require great masters... in person!

Holy Week. In Spain it means processions, floats, saetas, brotherhoods and entire cities organized around a calendar that is not only religious, but also cultural. In Catalonia it also means jesters, palms and palmons, family getaways and visits to emblematic places linked to the Christian tradition. Many Catalans of Andalusian origin return to their land these days to reconnect with Holy Week, which continues to have enormous strength.All this coexists with a certain intellectual contempt. Not on the part of everyone, of course. But in a large part of the political and urban progressivism, the Catholic religious tradition is usually viewed with a mixture of contempt, irony, and moral superiority. It is tolerated as a picturesque custom, an ancient remnant. Religion is questioned and its symbols are caricatured.The curious thing is that this same country that despises its traditions turns them, when April arrives, into a formidable economic machine. Renfe has scheduled three million places for this Holy Week. In many destinations, hotel reservations are close to full: Cuenca, Toledo, Andalusia, to give some examples. Tradition moves people, fills hotels, sustains restaurants, activates businesses, generates temporary employment, and gives economic meaning to many territories.Seville has even sophisticated the public management of its processions with maps, capacity control, and special mobility devices. Barcelona maintains the Fira de Rams on Rambla de Catalunya, where palms and laurel are sold. Catalan pastry shops are already exhibiting their "monas" as small works of competitive craftsmanship. All of this is real economy.The paradox deserves attention. The legacy is undervalued and then its impact on hospitality, transport, and domestic tourism is celebrated. The symbol is criticized and the box is applauded.Welcome to all this economic activity. But that is not the important thing. The important thing is that they are part of our legacy. Of a historical, cultural and moral heritage that has contributed to shaping us as a society. One may not be a believer, not practice, not share the Catholic faith and, even so, perfectly understand that one cannot live ignoring the Judeo-Christian tradition that has shaped a large part of our culture, our sensitivity, our idea of good and evil, our way of understanding life in common.Each person embraces these dates from a different place: from faith, from family emotion, from memory, from custom, or from simple inheritance. All of this is legitimate. What is poorer is to look at them with dogmatic contempt, as if they were an uncomfortable relic that is only tolerated because it makes money. They are part of us. And it would be advisable to remember this also for Easter.

I don't know about you, but I've been leaving the house without cash for a while now. And I don't mean going down to buy bread. I mean taking a high-speed train, going to Madrid, spending the whole day there, and coming back without a single coin in my wallet. Not a bill. Nothing. At most, a card. And often not even that: my phone. I suppose that was progress. That's why it's somewhat comical that the European Central Bank is now recommending that we keep cash at home. Not much. Between 70 and 100 euros per person, more or less what would be needed to last 72 hours in case of an emergency. In other words, the same system that has been pushing us towards an increasingly digital, more traceable, and more dependent world of screens, networks, batteries, keys, and platforms for years, is now asking us to keep a few bills in a drawer in case all this technical marvel fails for three days. The news is amusing. First, they get us used to not touching money. Then they turn cash into a somewhat inconvenient relic, even suspicious and frowned upon. Then they close ATMs, reduce branches, normalize paying by swiping a finger over a screen. And, when the process is already quite advanced, they warn us: "Don't forget to have a little cash just in case." Just in case of what. Just in case what almost everything now depends on fails.The ECB explains it in technical language: resilience, contingency, operational continuity. All very credible. But translated into everyday Catalan, it means something quite simple: have cash, because we know the system can fail. And when it fails, you won't eat with a password. What strikes me most is not that they tell us to have cash at home, but that they have had to say it. It doesn't show that the authorities are giving up on digital money. It shows just the opposite: that they know perfectly well how much we have handed over our daily lives to a payment and collection infrastructure that we do not control. So much so, that they are publicly releasing a contingency plan that consists of returning, for 72 hours, to something that was supposed to be despicable and old. They don't recommend it to us from a daily perspective, but as a monetary first-aid kit, like someone who advises having flashlights, batteries, or cans of preserves. Honestly, it makes me laugh. Put 100 euros in your emergency kit for blackouts.The message: it's not that cash is still alive; it's that we've advanced so much towards its daily irrelevance that the central bank has had to remind us that real money (the kind that works when everything else fails) still exists, and that we should try to keep some at home. We are a society that, in effect, has already given up on cash.

Oil prices are rising again. Brent crude is hovering around $110 and has even touched $120. This isn't a one-off spike. It's a jump that could last for months.

Judging by the headlines surrounding the Iran war, there's a fear that the West will enter the war and we could end up in a third world war. However, when one examines the international system from an economic perspective, another conclusion emerges: a large-scale, protracted war is profoundly irrational for almost all the actors involved.

Today I'm taking a brief break from my economics articles. On Saturday night, at the Palau de la Música, the show about Maragall that I had the privilege of composing and which the newspaper ARA co-produced premiered. Before returning to my usual topics, I feel I must simply say thank you. To everyone.

Revenues are growing. Spending is growing. The deficit remains. The 2026 budget projects non-financial revenues of €48.231 billion and total spending of €49.162 billion. The difference is small in relative terms (a deficit of 0.1%), but the economic message is more profound: in the midst of the expansionary phase of the cycle, we are still not generating a surplus. Spending increases by €9.126 billion compared to the last approved budget. That's a jump of 22.8%. Revenues, driven by the strong economic performance and the financing model, are also growing strongly, although the Catalan government doesn't present the comparative data with the same political forcefulness as it does for spending. The key is this: practically all the increase in revenue is absorbed by higher structural spending. In economic terms, this means that the permanent size of the public sector is increasing, taking advantage of the tailwinds of the economic cycle. Is this prudent?

The government has created a single state registry for tourist accommodations. A mandatory registration number. One-stop shop. Digital traceability. And appeals have already been filed with the Supreme Court alleging an overreach of authority. Andalusia and industry associations have challenged it. The autonomous communities are defending their jurisdiction. The central government wants to centralize the data.

Gold is back at record highs, over €4,200 per ounce. Since July of last year, it has experienced a meteoric rise. Those who invested back then have almost doubled their initial investment. Just three months earlier, a wholesaler in the jewelry sector recommended I invest in gold. I didn't because I never speculate or invest in things that don't offer clear returns.

Several banks have announced that they will tighten mortgage conditions throughout 2026. Prices will rise, and lending standards will be stricter. This shift comes after a record-breaking 2025. The official explanation cites prudence and the need to avoid future risks in the real estate market.

This week, new ads have appeared for entire villages for sale at five hundred thousand euros. I confess: I'm one of those people who spends time looking at these ads, driven by a kind of fascination, a dream, and awe all at once. "Should we sell our apartment and move there?" I often ask my family, knowing I'm suggesting the impossible.

This week, the ARA reported on a study by four German economists analyzing millions of import transactions in the United States. The conclusion was devastating: between 94% and 96% of the cost of the tariffs imposed by Washington has not been borne by foreign exporters, but by Americans themselves. Prices have not fallen. They have risen. The tariffs have functioned as a hidden internal tax. An own goal. Read this way, the message seems reassuring for Europe. If the tariffs are paid by Americans and everything remains more or less the same, the damage is limited. This interpretation is incomplete. And, above all, misleading.

This January 14th, I strolled down a shopping street in Barcelona and… Hearts. Red. "Give love." "Surprise them." Gift sets. Ribbons. Valentine's Day was on full display as if it were imminent.

A year and a half ago I was in a serious car accident in which I almost lost my life. It was nighttime. I was driving towards Seville. A girl sped towards me on a two-lane road. I was hit several times and ended up off the road, crashed into a wall.

Imagine NATO as a community of three villas with a swimming pool, gardens, sports courts, and an expensive security system. Three major owners pay the main dues: the United States, Europe, and Canada.

What has happened in Venezuela is difficult to comprehend. The United States has launched a military operation on Caracas to capture President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. It is an intervention comparable only to the capture of Manuel Noriega in Panama in 1989.

For years, the explanation for almost everything in economics was the cycle. We were doing badly because the cycle was bad. We were doing well because the cycle was helping. 2025 has served to dismantle that excuse. The Spanish economy is no longer trapped in a temporary downturn. On the contrary. It is growing above the European average, has managed to reduce inflation without destroying jobs, and has normalized the financial environment without major disruptions. And yet, the public perception is one of stagnation, not to mention hardship and hardship.

The Catalan government wants us to eat more pork. And to achieve this, it has decided to talk about pork a lot. A whole lot. Statements, press releases, press conferences. And now, an institutional advertising campaign. All pork, all the time. It's a bold strategy. As bold as recommending skydiving on the same day the news opens with a plane crash.

You go to a restaurant to eat. And, if you're with someone, to chat or share a good meal, lingering over conversation afterward. Dining out is, among many other things, a social activity. However, it's becoming increasingly common to walk into a restaurant and find the music so loud that you have to call one of the other diners over to ask for bread.