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.

Gabriel Rufián has been insisting for months on forming a sovereignist left-wing front in the State and, at the same time, has an open battle within his parliamentary group. There is no understanding or harmony with the majority of his party colleagues and the conflict has been escalating for months. That is why it is relevant that, in this context, a meeting is scheduled in Madrid next week with Oriol Junqueras. According to what ARA has learned, the president of Esquerra will be in the Spanish capital and will meet with the party's deputies in Congress. A meeting that could be routine if the conflict with Rufián were not looming.

The deadline is approaching and it is confirmed that the number 1 on the Junts list in Barcelona will be contested by four candidates. Jordi Martí Galbis, Pilar Calvo, Glòria Freixa and Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas have submitted the more than 200 signatures (20% of the endorsements, although it has not been published exactly how many each has obtained) that the party required of them and it is expected that this Friday they will be officially proclaimed as candidates for the primaries. The party's municipal territorial commission (CMT) must now validate the signatures provided by each candidate and kick off the electoral campaign, which is scheduled from June 13 to 19. The membership will be able to vote on the 20th and 21st, and the winner will be announced on the same day.

Since this Tuesday, the Vatican flag has been flying on the facade of the Palau de la Generalitat and also on that of Barcelona City Hall. The Government has fully committed to the institutional visit that Pope Leo XIV is making to Catalonia – the first stop was this weekend in Madrid and will end the week in the Canary Islands – and the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, is accompanying the pontiff throughout his stay, from the moment he disembarked the plane on the very same runway. The visual proof that the Government wants to give its all for this visit is that it has also hung the flag on the facade of the Generalitat. Why?

It is not a new conflict. In the ERC parliamentary group in Madrid, things have not been calm for some time. The coexistence between Gabriel Rufián and part of the group has reached an almost unsustainable point. And the party leadership has known this for a long time. The confrontation has escalated in recent months and has gone beyond the limits of Congress since the Republicans' spokesperson launched his proposal for a left-wing front – which the Republican leadership rejects – and has threatened not to run again as an ERC candidate if the leadership does not accept his conditions: surrounding himself with a trusted team and having more decision-making power in Madrid. How does Oriol Junqueras' leadership plan to address this conflict?

It is not a new conflict. In the ERC parliamentary group in Madrid, things have not been calm for some time. The coexistence between Gabriel Rufián and a part of the group has reached an almost unsustainable point. And the party leadership has known this for a long time. The confrontation has intensified in recent months and has gone beyond the limits of Congress since the spokesperson for the Republicans launched his proposal for a left-wing front – which the Republican leadership rejects – and has threatened not to run again as an ERC candidate if the leadership does not accept his conditions: to surround himself with a trusted team and have more decision-making power in Madrid. How does Oriol Junqueras' leadership plan to address this conflict?

Two hours after learning that 39,500 teachers have voted against the preliminary agreement between unions and Education, the minister Esther Niubó, appeared to explain that the measures of the pact would go ahead. "The commitment to implement this agreement is there," she defended, and recalled that "only" USTEC has said it will not sign the agreement, while Professors de Secundària, CCOO, and UGT will. The minister explained this after an emergency meeting with President Salvador Illa.

Salvador Illa's first budgets passed their initial parliamentary stage this Thursday. The debate on the entirety of the accounts once again highlighted the alliance that brought the socialist president to the Palau de la Generalitat and which the Government intends to serve it to reach the end of the legislature. Thus, the budgets have begun to be processed with the support of the two investiture partners, ERC and Comuns, with whom the Government reached an agreement two weeks ago. The executive, however, has not managed to secure the 'yes' of any of the opposition groups: Junts, the CUP, Aliança, the PP, and Vox had presented amendments in their entirety, four texts that have been rejected. The words of the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, asking them to come out of the "trench" and defending accounts that reach almost 50 billion euros and grow by 22% compared to those of 2023, have not served to convince them. And even more so when, during the debate, the news broke that teachers rejected the unions' agreement with Education. Junts and the CUP have taken the opportunity to attack the executive, while the partners have asked the Government to reopen negotiations.

Without any reference to the judicial cases surrounding his environment, but with an announcement that is the message itself, Pedro Sánchez is pushing the legislature forward and this week will begin the process of presenting the 2027 budgets. The announcement was made before Catalan business leaders and also the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, at this year's conference of the Cercle d'Economia in Barcelona. Sánchez has claimed the need for state accounts, which would be the first of the legislature and would arrive at the most delicate moment of the term, when cases of alleged corruption are increasingly besieging the environment of the Spanish president.

It was a debate with a predictable conclusion: a clash between the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, and the President of the Xunta de Galicia, Alfonso Rueda. The former, a staunch defender of the new financing model agreed between the PSOE and ERC; the latter, representing the PP, as a detractor of the proposal. And in between, Imanol Pradales, the Basque lehendakari, who watched from the sidelines defending his economic concert as a "rara avis" in Spain. All this, in a round table at this year's conference of the Cercle d'Economia. "I don't want any advantage or privilege for Catalonia, but I also don't want us to be left behind," argued Illa, before adding that Catalonia "will not ask for permission to lead and to make respectful proposals." "I will not ask anyone for permission either, but an agreement must be reached," Rueda replied.

The Secretary General of Junts, Jordi Turull, has challenged Alberto Núñez Feijóo to meet with Carles Puigdemont in Waterloo if he wants to convince the party to join an instrumental motion of no confidence to bring down Pedro Sánchez and call elections. "If he has a serious offer, serious things are explained in meetings, and he [Feijóo] knows that meetings with Junts, with the highest leadership [...], must be held in Waterloo," he told El matí de Catalunya Ràdio. The proposal caught Feijóo at the Cercle d'Economia, but he did not want to explicitly respond to Turull's request. The popular leader once again defended the motion of no confidence, but warned: "I am not coming to ask for favors nor to give them away."

With the budget agreement under its arm, Salvador Illa landed this Monday at the annual conferences of the Cercle d'Economia with the tranquility of presenting himself to the Catalan business fabric with an "stability" that the sector values – in the words of the Cercle's own president, Teresa Garcia-Milà. If the orbital railway line – which must connect cities in the second metropolitan ring, from Vilanova i la Geltrú to Mataró, without passing through Barcelona – was the key to the pact with ERC for the accounts, the President of the Generalitat has taken advantage of the platform that the Cercle has given him to put infrastructure back on the table and make an announcement: the Government will mobilize 3,300 million euros from public-private collaboration to "accelerate strategic infrastructures". "Now is the time to recover a system that has been stalled since 2010, a public-private model for infrastructure," Illa defended before the Catalan business community.

"I will not run again for ERC if certain conditions are not met," stated Gabriel Rufián at a conference in Madrid a few days ago. The Republican spokesperson in Congress said this after once again defending a common left-wing front and offering himself to lead it. A proposal that the ERC leadership rejects because they do not see it as viable. However, they maintain that Rufián continues to be their choice to lead the list in general elections. The Republican spokesperson, however, assures that to repeat as a candidate, he wants two basic conditions to be met. Which ones? He did not specify them publicly at that conference, but limited himself to talking about the "parliamentary group" and making it clear what they are facing. What does this translate to? The ERC spokesperson in Madrid wants to surround himself with a trusted team and list, but also wants to have more influence on decisions that depend on Madrid. Two conditions that make the party uncomfortable.

The day Judge José Luis Calama indicted former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Oriol Junqueras defended pursuing any "type of corruption", but also warned of possible lawfare: "Always in favor of corruption being pursued and at the same time, I want to recall that some accusations made throughout history were absolutely false and invented." And he gave as an example Jorge Fernández Díaz's "the prosecution will sort it out for you." ERC's spokesperson in Madrid, Gabriel Rufián, also denounced a "witch hunt" against the left, who, despite this, admitted to being "pissed off" by the high regard he has for Zapatero: "If it's true, it's a shame."

The left-wing front that began to walk in February in Madrid made a stop this Saturday in Barcelona. Comuns, Més Madrid, Esquerra Unida and Moviment Sumar have once again shared a stage to defend a common project for the upcoming general elections at a time when Gabriel Rufián's proposal, which calls for uniting state and sovereignist left-wing forces, continues to resonate. Under the slogan A step forward, the promoters of this refoundation of what was Sumar in 2023 have presented themselves as the alternative to the PSOE at a time when cases of alleged corruption surround the socialists and, especially, the environment of the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez. In this regard, the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, has demanded that the PSOE make a move: "Responsibilities must be assumed, faces must be shown, and brave decisions must be made".

The PSC remains ahead in the polls a month and a half before the 12-M elections. Also in the latest barometer from the Centre d'Estudis d'Opinió (CEO) made public this Thursday, even though the poll was conducted before the announcement by the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, of advancing the elections. Be that as it may, if the parliamentary elections were held today, the socialists would revalidate the victory of three years ago and would aim to obtain between 35 and 42 seats, a slight setback compared to the November survey (the November poll) (39-45). Behind them would be ERC, with 26-32 seats and an average rating of its government by Catalans of 4.3 (the same as the Spanish government's). The Republicans see Junts approaching them, which would rise to 24-29 seats. The poll data was collected between February 9 and March 7. Precisely on the last day, the agreement for the amnesty law was materialized and approved in the Justice Commission of the Congress. During this period, the Koldo case also broke out, which implicates the former Minister of Transport, the socialist José Luis Ábalos, and in early February, farmers began to mobilize in the streets.

One of the mantras ERC resorts to in defining its relationship with the PSC is that of "gaining sovereignty". The Republicans explain that their agreements are based on achieving more resources, competences, and decision-making capacity for Catalonia. Have they achieved this? For now, through republican and socialist pushes and pulls, they have been unblocking some of the files agreed upon in the investitures of Salvador Illa (2024) and Pedro Sánchez (2023). However, they have found the solution in a mixed formula: establishing companies jointly owned by the Generalitat and the State, where the state administration has a majority.

After swallowing the bitter pill of withdrawing the first budgets he presented as President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa is now, truly, beginning the path for Parliament to give the green light to the first accounts of the legislature. With the support of ERC and Comuns secured, Illa is ensuring one of his main objectives for the legislature. The accounts for this 2026 will be the Government's first and, perhaps, only ones, because 2027 is an election year, with municipal and general elections in sight, and 2028 is already his last year of the legislature, two scenarios not conducive to negotiating accounts. Therefore, having achieved these budgets, Illa is ensuring, for now, the continuity of the legislature.

In broad daylight and on the city promenade, in September 2023, several young people threw tables and chairs at each other in a pitched battle that ended up being a kind of turning point in Manresa. That episode caused several residents to take to the streets to demand measures against "insecurity" in the street from the municipal government, led by the republican Marc Aloy. That demonstration, however, was already born divided, and some groups directly distanced themselves from it so as not to link insecurity with immigration. This is, in fact, the fragile balance in which Manresa, a city of 80,000 inhabitants with almost 22% of people from abroad, has been moving for some years.