His departure from active politics was not agreed upon, but rather forced. Alberto Casero (Trujillo, 1978), former PP deputy, left his seat in Congress on March 3, 2023, after being prosecuted for the crimes of prevarication and embezzlement for five contracts awarded in 2017 and 2018 when he was the mayor of the Extremaduran town where he was born. In exchange for not going to trial, he ended up accepting one year and nine months in prison, six years of disqualification, and an indemnity of 70,000 euros. This put an end to a long political career, in which his name will surely be remembered for a mistake: the vote in favor of the labor reform of the then second vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, which allowed her to move forward with the rule in 2022. "I was devastated, crushed. I will always be the one who made the vote," he tells ARA.

On August 8, exactly two years ago, the investiture of Salvador Illa hung by a thread. That day, all eyes were on Carles Puigdemont. The former president's return ended up being fleeting and marked a day that culminated with the PSC leader being designated as the new president of the Generalitat thanks to the votes of ERC and Comuns. Since then, Illa has wanted to establish his Government as the one that has "turned the page" on the Process. The one that has put housing at the center of its priorities and also the one that has agreed with ERC and the Spanish government on a new financing system for Catalonia. However, Illa is also the president with the deepest educational crisis in recent years and the one who has had to face the chronic chaos of Rodalies. Past the halfway point, the socialist government faces the second part of the legislature with the first – and perhaps the only – budgets secured. It is the guarantee of stability that Illa was looking for to reach the end of the term – although the socialists do not rule out presenting those for 2027–. However, the Government still has assignments to resolve before reaching the end of a legislature that will also have external variables that will fully impact it, such as the next municipal and general elections, or the possible return of Carles Puigdemont.

"My intention was to kick them all out and keep Esquerra. And then, to be able to use their electoral resources". This is one of the phrases that Marc Puigtió, ERC candidate for mayor in Girona, utters in a conversation with a young man linked to Vox, responsible for the Instagram profile Girona Perduda, which spreads disinformation and messages of insecurity in the city. The young man secretly recorded the conversation and has made it public on social media in recent hours. Following this leak, the party has opened an informational file to gather all the information and make a decision. Specifically, the ERC ethics committee met this Tuesday afternoon to open the file and "determine, if applicable, the corresponding responsibilities", they point out from the party, adding that they will not make any further statements on the case until the file is closed.

If a couple wants to sign the papers to become a de facto couple, they will now only need to fill out one form instead of two as before. And to give sanitary consent before a surgical intervention, it can now be done by signing the corresponding document through the La Meva Salut app. "The patient reads it calmly and accepts or rejects it. [...] It is an improvement for patients and professionals," defends the anesthesiologist from Vall d'Hebron Sandra Galve. These are just two examples of the procedures that the Government has simplified or is in the process of simplifying. So far, it has streamlined up to 170 and plans to add 40 more that should be ready by 2028. The objective is to save citizens time in their daily dealings with the Generalitat, which the Government estimates to be around 2,000.

Salvador Illa reaches the halfway point of his term with the stability he sought, with his first budgets, but closes the political year without being able to quell one of the crises he has been dealing with for months: the educational one. In fact, the conflict with teachers has worsened in recent days following the PISA test fiasco, but the President of the Generalitat has once again reaffirmed his confidence in the Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, and has assured that the Government will go to the end to find out what happened. Despite the crisis, Illa has boasted about the country's progress and has put the new financing model as a "priority" for his term. In fact, he has expressed confidence in maintaining the support of his partners until the end of the legislature and has assured that he does not plan to make any further changes to his cabinet after the replacement of the head of Social Rights, Mònica Martínez Bravo.Freshly returned from his official trip to Vietnam and Singapore, Illa appeared this Friday at a press conference at the Palau de la Generalitat to review his second year in office and took the opportunity to announce an increase in public works in the coming months of around 500 million euros and also his next trip: Ukraine. "We are cooperating very well and it is important to send a message of support for the enormous effort being made," Illa defended. However, the president admitted that the Government has pending issues to resolve, including the housing crisis, but also to fulfill the flagship investiture agreement that the socialists signed with ERC: the new financing model. "It is the priority," he admitted.

The Government approved this Tuesday, before going on vacation, one of the projects it has most championed. It is the law of professional public management, which aims to end the arbitrary selection of public executives and limit their mandate. The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, presented the norm a year ago together with the professional entities that support it, and this Tuesday the executive presented the details of a regulation that seeks to put an end to the discretion with which, currently, parties choose the people who hold general directorates and deputy directorates of the Government of the Generalitat. Thus, the norm foresees that selection processes will be based on "merit and suitability" and sets a maximum term of seven years (extendable) for mandates. In total, the norm would affect approximately 727 senior positions: 320 general directors and 407 deputy directors.

It will probably not surprise anyone if we state that Salvador Illa is the main pillar that Pedro Sánchez has left in Spain. The current head of the Catalan executive was the PSOE leader's bet to reconquer the Palau de la Generalitat in 2021 after years of independence governments. He did not achieve it at first, but after three years of waiting, the socialists returned to preside over the Government.Their idyll had been born from Illa's time as Minister of Health: it was in the midst of the pandemic when the two socialist leaders forged a bond, political and personal, that has not cracked with the passage of years. Not even now, when the Spanish president is going through his worst moment of the legislature, besieged by various judicial cases that involve his closest political and personal circle. In fact, it is now that Salvador Illa has shown him his most unconditional support. Also at the risk of tying his political future to the fate of the Spanish president.

With Juanma Moreno Bonilla handed over to Vox, in the baron popular has lost, at least publicly, the moderate label it had earned by contrasting its ideological profile with that of Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The PP is convinced that if it wants Alberto Núñez Feijóo to reach Moncloa, it will have to be hand in hand with Vox. That is why the popular party has been paving the way for pacts with the far-right at the regional level and, in recent days, the popular leader has tried to join in. Of course, with his clumsy style and following a rather erratic line.

No one would say that Salvador Illa was Pere Aragonès's leader of the opposition for three years. No one would say that judging by the praise that the President of the Generalitat showered on his predecessor this Friday to thank him for handing over the documentary fund of his three-year term to the National Archive of Catalonia. Illa has underlined the republican's "institutional sense" –"He always put the institution before everything else," he assured– and has once again valued the "exemplary" handover that Aragonès made him when he left the Palau de la Generalitat. A handover that Illa takes as a "reference" for when it's his turn. "I hope there are still a few years left," he admitted with a half-smile at the event he presided over this morning at the National Archive.

The Prosecutor's Office is "obstructing" the judicial investigations opened into the Pegasus espionage of several Catalan pro-independence leaders. This is the conclusion reached by Amnesty International after studying the public ministry's actions in the ten ongoing judicial cases. Specifically, the organization denounces that the Prosecutor's Office has been hindering these investigations for six years. "The public ministry should support the victims, it has a vital role in protecting their rights," said Virginia Álvarez, head of investigation and domestic policy at Amnesty International in Spain.

While the Spanish legislature is alive, the Spanish government maintains steps to try to bring the new regional financing model to light. What timeline is it working with? Once the Andalusian elections are overcome – in which the former vice-president and former Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, ran as a candidate – the state executive has reactivated the machinery and has set a new meeting of the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy (CPFF) for Wednesday, July 29, which should serve to put on the table the new financing system that the socialists agreed with ERC (and presented in January). Previously, on July 14, the Spanish government will hold a preparatory technical meeting with all the autonomous communities and this week it will distribute the specific proposal to all communities. The next step will be for the Council of Ministers to approve the proposal and then send it to Congress, probably in September. And there, it still has to win the necessary support for this new model to see the light.

Salvador Illa will reach the midpoint of the legislature with the political stability he sought. This Thursday, Parliament has definitively approved the budgets that he agreed upon a few weeks ago with Esquerra and Comuns, the two investiture partners, who this morning added their votes to validate the first accounts of the socialist government – Junts deputy Noemí Nieto also voted in favor by mistake. Accounts that will reach almost 50,000 million euros, 22% more than those of 2023, the last project still approved under the presidency of Pere Aragonès. This Thursday's plenary session also validated the budget accompanying law, which includes, among other things, increasing the tourist tax to 30 euros per day for cruise ships calling at Barcelona and creating the Catalan Airport Authority. Illa thus guarantees himself to reach the end of the legislature with updated budgets and a parliamentary majority that requires the Government to continue for its agreements to be fulfilled.

June began in Parliament with a heated control session in which the opposition tried to surround the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, for the cases of alleged corruption affecting the PSOE and Pedro Sánchez's circle. And the first control session of this July has started the same way, with one more step from the Junts politicians. The president of the Junts group in the Catalan chamber, Mònica Sales, demanded this Wednesday that Illa ask for "forgiveness" for the judicial cases and stop "hiding himself". "When Catalonia has a problem, you disappear; when the PSOE has one, you are always there," she said. "This weekend you had the opportunity to ask for forgiveness on behalf of your party," she retorted, referring to the PSOE federal committee, in which the president said that socialists have "no fear" of anything. Illa, in turn, reiterated that he fears nothing and that he has already given the necessary "explanations".

Gabriel Rufián said on Thursday that the PSOE had already contacted them to discuss next year's budgets. However, he did not reveal whether the Republicans were willing to negotiate them or if they had already decided on the conditions they would set. He simply said he hoped the Spanish government would present the accounts to "negotiate and approve them," meaning they should not be "an excuse or a lever for other things," in reference to a possible early election. Is ERC really willing to negotiate the budgets?

Jordi Pujol reappeared this Monday to put a face to the donation that the party he founded, Convergència, has made to the National Archive of Catalonia. The formation has donated its documentary collection in an act presided over by the head of the Catalan executive, Salvador Illa. In fact, the socialist president has once again heaped praise on Pujol: he has acknowledged his "work and political passion in the service of the country." Praise that he also extended to Convergència: "Catalonia owes a lot to Convergència and Catalonia, without Convergència, it would not have been the country it is today." The president has described the 150 linear meters of documents, posters, and merchandise of the party as a "collective treasure."

Jordi Martí Galbis wins Junts primaries in Barcelona and will be the party's mayoral candidate in the Catalan capital. Martí has won by 253 votes (40.29%) against the other candidates. Pilar Calvo came in second place with 184 votes (29.30%), while Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas came in third, with 117 votes (18.63%). In last place, Glòria Freixa, who obtained 70 votes (11.15%). In total, 934 militants were called to participate, of whom 628 voted, representing a 67.24% turnout. Jordi Martí was not the candidate Carles Puigdemont's leadership was backing, but the current leader of the municipal group in Barcelona decided to step forward regardless. His victory is, therefore, a warning to the Junts leadership.

For months, the case being investigated by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado against Begoña Gómez, wife of the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, has been causing unease within socialist ranks: they consider it "persecution" against Gómez for being the wife of the head of the state executive. This weekend, however, Peinado has also managed to outrage the police and part of the judiciary with the argument he used to justify the withdrawal of Gómez's passport, a precautionary measure requested by the popular prosecution led by the ultra entity Hazte Oír. The magistrate considered there was a flight risk because her escorts could help her in a possible escape. An argument that angered the police force and also put the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) on alert. So much so that this Monday the permanent commission of this body will study whether to open disciplinary proceedings against Peinado.

Judge Juan Carlos Peinado sends Begoña Gómez, wife of Spanish President Pedro Sánchez, to trial and revokes her passport. The magistrate resolved this Saturday the request for precautionary measures made by the popular accusers in Monday's hearing. Thus, Gómez will not be able to accompany Sánchez on international trips. In addition to the passport revocation, he also prohibits her from leaving the State and obliges her to report to the court every fifteen days. These are the measures requested by Hazte Oír, the ultra entity that groups the popular accusers, because they considered there was a risk of flight. However, they did not request preventive detention. Peinado also accepts the same precautionary measures for Begoña Gómez's advisor, Cristina Álvarez.

On June 18, twenty years ago today, Catalonia voted on the Statute in a referendum. Without many queues —only 49% of Catalans eligible to vote participated—, but with a broad majority of 73.9% —20.76% voted against and 5.34% abstained—, the country's basic law was ratified, already cut back from its birth in Parliament and which would still suffer a hard blow four years later in the Constitutional Court.

In the midst of a conflict with Gabriel Rufián, Oriol Junqueras met with the parliamentary group in Madrid this Wednesday. The meeting lasted about two hours and, according to consulted sources, the open battle within the parliamentary group in Madrid due to the lack of harmony between the Republican spokesperson and the majority of his party colleagues was not brought up. The leadership shared the party's strategy for the end of the Spanish legislature with the parliamentary group. However, as the party explained in a statement, Junqueras also asked the deputies for "coordination" to face "the challenges" of this legislature. Thus, he conveyed to them the "need to face this stage with the utmost demand, determination, and coordination". "The decisions that will have to be made in the coming months will be decisive in guaranteeing more resources, more decision-making power, and more well-being for the country as a whole," adds the party. Until now, the leadership had prescribed patience to the parliamentary group in Madrid.