Barcelona kicked off the 2026 La Mercè festival this Wednesday with an opening speech that championed local commerce as one of the city's great distinguishing features. It was delivered by Toni and Meritxell Falgueras, father and daughter and representatives of a dynasty of shopkeepers who have been serving the neighbors of the Sants neighborhood for over 131 years from the counter of the Celler Gelida. Both delivered an agile speech in which they called for people to continue shopping at local businesses. "Not so much crying when they close, but doing more to ensure they don't," they emphasized.

A mixed bag this Tuesday for Jaume Collboni's government. The city council's Economy Commission endorsed this Tuesday a progressive increase in the tourist surcharge for cruise ship passengers in transit –those who spend less than twelve hours in the city– until this type of tourist pays thirty euros to visit the city. The municipal government, on the other hand, has not managed to gather a sufficient majority around the increase in IBI (property tax) for luxury hotels. Both files will now face a definitive debate this Friday in the plenary session.

The Construction Board of the Sagrada Família stumbled this Tuesday over the staircase that is to crown the Glory façade. In a surprising plot twist, the board's director general, Xavier Martínez, had opened the door for the first time to being able to build the staircase by demolishing only one building: the Núñez i Navarro property on Mallorca street. Hours later, however, the temple itself corrected the message and underscored that while that property is the key piece to being able to build the staircase, its construction will also "entail impacts on other buildings in the vicinity".

It is not easy to get used to changes. This is corroborated by one of the new flexible bollards that have been installed on Balmes Street, which define the new relationship between cars and buses on one of the busiest streets in Barcelona. A few minutes past nine in the morning, it is already completely crushed and lying on the ground. This Friday is the first day of the pilot project promoted by the City Council so that vehicles wanting to turn right must do so from the middle lane. That is to say, without occupying the bus lane and giving way to taxis and buses in the style of what they already have to do, for example, with bike lanes.

The mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, already has a date for his first major political test of the term. The fourth deputy mayor, Jordi Valls, announced this Friday the calling of an extraordinary Economy commission next Tuesday to put to a vote the fiscal ordinances for the next term and the proposal to increase the tourist surcharge on cruise ships in transit. Two key debates that the municipal government aspires to be able to move forward before facing a folder that at first glance seems much more complicated: the budgets.

Twenty-one years later, the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Guàrdia Urbana have renewed this Thursday the agreement that regulates the collaboration between the two forces. "A very important step," in the words of the Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, who wants to favor joint work between both police forces and consolidate a harmony that has had its ups and downs over these two decades. Among the novelties of the text is the possibility of expanding the reception of complaints at municipal police stations, the reinforcement of information exchange between the two forces, and more coordination in the investigation of certain crimes and in the care for victims of gender and domestic violence.

Frontal opposition from Barcelona City Council to the possibility of installing a new water treatment plant in the city's last large agricultural space. The first deputy mayor, Laia Bonet, rejected this Tuesday in the council's urban planning commission that the Ponderosa vegetable gardens –in the Vallbona neighborhood– be sacrificed to install a facility of this type. "La Ponderosa is not the appropriate location for this infrastructure," argued Bonet, who assured that the municipal government has also conveyed this "clearly" to both the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) as well as the AMB and the Generalitat.

Barcelona has officialized this Monday the signing of an agreement with the UGT and Comissions Obreres through which it adds the two majority unions to the race to accelerate the construction of public housing. In a press conference, the mayor, Jaume Collboni, and the general secretaries of the two unions in Catalonia, Belén López and Camil Ros, explained the keys to an agreement that should allow for the construction of 1,500 new apartments in the city over the next decade.

Barcelona is strengthening its fight against bladed weapons. After another dark weekend with five people injured by this type of weapon, the mayor, Jaume Collboni, announced that last Thursday the city council's government commission approved that all Guàrdia Urbana vehicles will be equipped with metal detector wands.

If there is a secret to aging well, it seems likely that Valentí Fuster knows something about it. At 83 years old, this global reference in cardiology is participating in one of the Generation+ meetings organized by Caixabank to talk about the challenges of longevity in the economy and health. He does so with a lucidity unusual for someone who was on a plane traveling from the United States just three hours ago. The audience, of course, wants to know the recipe of a man capable of still balancing the role of director of the Cardiovascular Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York with the direction of the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) in Madrid.

Two months after the sinkhole due to the metro line 9 construction works that forced them to leave their homes, the residents of the Sant Gervasi - la Bonanova neighborhood now have the collective lawsuit ready. A text that they plan to present in the coming hours and that, as ARA has learned, will finally not be directed only against the Generalitat, but will also point to the civil liability of the Barcelona City Council. It is a decisive step in a process that is expected to be long, which will force a negotiation between the parties and could lead to significant compensation.

One of the miracles that Barcelona preserves is the Ponderosa vegetable gardens, in the Vallbona neighborhood and right next to the Rec Comtal. A large part of this last great agricultural space of the Catalan capital survives on land that, as ARA has been able to confirm, changed hands at the end of 2024. In November of that year, the public-private company Aigües de Barcelona (Agbar) acquired a plot of almost nine hectares in the Nou Barris district, on the border between Barcelona and Montcada, located between roads and train tracks, but key for the city and also for the management of the water that reaches it.

Barcelona is preparing for the final sprint before the municipal elections in May. With all the runners in their positions once the uncertainties regarding the heads of the lists for Junts per Barcelona and Barcelona en Comú have been resolved, and the entry of Aliança Catalana into the capital confirmed, everything is ready for the start of the final political term before the elections. A short term—less than nine months—but with burning issues such as housing, the increase in homelessness, or the recent shootings in the city that will surely condition the plenary that emerges from the polling station.

The transformation of the border between Barcelona, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, and Esplugues de Llobregat in the upper part of Diagonal, which will involve the relocation of the Hospital Clínic, continues to take shape. This Wednesday, the general council of the Porta Diagonal – Campus Clínic consortium has given the green light to the progress of the urban development plan (PDU), the document that will guide the entire metamorphosis of the area. This plan, for the first time, puts forward a figure for how much housing will be built around the campus. Specifically, it plans to build 1,125 apartments. Of these, at least half will have to be protected housing.

The Poblenou main festival, celebrated from September 10 to 20 in Barcelona, could this year be without one of its most characteristic events. A disagreement between the City Council and the Gremi de Firaires de Barcelona could leave the neighborhood without attractions. The reason behind the dispute is the location of the fair, conditioned by the works being carried out near the site where the fairgoers usually set up, on Passeig de Calvell, at the end of Rambla del Poblenou.

A forest fire declared this Tuesday is burning in Collserola, north of Barcelona. The fire has generated special concern due to its proximity to several homes and has forced the precautionary evacuation of 35 residents from a frontline of houses in Torre Baró. None of those affected needed to stay overnight in a municipal facility.

One of the most important transformation projects in 22@ nord has shed a little more light on its future this Tuesday. In a press conference, the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, explained that the complete renovation of L'Escocesa – which had been one of the oldest textile factories in Poblenou – to turn it into a "pole of economic, cultural, social and residential innovation" should be ready during 2029. "It finally sees the horizon," celebrated the mayor.

A large red sign announces that the premises on the corner of Travessera de Gràcia and Sant Gabriel street, next to Plaça Gal·la Placídia in Barcelona, are for rent. Until three weeks ago, there was a jewelry and accessories store in those ground-floor premises that had been in the neighborhood for years. Until July 31, when it closed definitively, the shop had a letter hanging on its door saying goodbye to the neighbors and explaining the reasons for the move to a new location in Sant Gervasi: the impact of the works on line L8 of Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC).

Lina López (Caracas, 1977) is the president of the Festa Major de Gràcia Foundation. She arrived in Barcelona twenty years ago and explains that getting involved in the festival – she is part of the Lluís Vives street commission – helped her overcome her most difficult moment. This year she is leaving the position, after a term that began in 2022.

Only Antònia Font's Batiscafo Katiuscas could find the way through the unfathomable waters that the decorated streets competition of the Gràcia festival often turns into. Plaça Rovira has this time won first prize in the competition with its precious tribute to one of the emblematic songs of the Mallorcan band. The jury has recognized the work of this square in Gràcia, which, beyond the underwater tribute to Antònia Font, had one of the best details of this edition of the competition: an exhibition that allowed to see sketches of the decorations from other years. Brillen ses estrelles, therefore, in Plaça Rovira, which has beaten other streets that were ahead in the predictions in a very disputed edition.