Fifteen years had to pass, with the 'Procés' in between, for the Crown of Aragon to be made visible once again: it took place at the meeting in the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Poblet. King Felipe VI presided this Thursday over the meeting of the Poblet board of trustees with the Catalan, Valencian, Balearic, and Aragonese presidents, in addition to the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun. All together, beyond highlighting the common history with the kings buried in the royal pantheon of this monastery founded in the 12th century, and which is reflected by the four common bars on the flags of the territories, they wanted to celebrate the common Spanish project.

There are debates that seemed buried, but which are resurfacing. Just as last Friday the PP celebrated the Day of the Valencian Country or also celebrates the Galician holiday of July 25th (needless to say, this Monday they were on the streets of Madrid and Barcelona doing the same for Hispanidad), in Catalonia the populars have been skipping it for years. But that could change soon. With the end of the 'Procés', the 'Diada' is seen in a different light by the PP. In fact, this year there was no internal order prohibiting their leaders from attending the institutional acts of September 11th, as had existed in other years. The leader of the PP in the city of Barcelona, Daniel Sirera, decided to attend the solemn flag-raising ceremony held in front of the Parliament. It was a gesture that he had not shared internally, but which he had planned, and which may mark a turning point for next year, as confirmed by ARA in conversation with different party leaders.

The day after Gabriel Rufián's agreement with ERC to become the party's candidate for the Spanish elections, with an understanding with Podemos included, there have been movements on the Spanish left. Specifically, the four parties of the Broad Front –Sumar, United Left, Más Madrid, and Comuns– have issued a joint statement in which they propose the former mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, as a candidate for the presidency of the Spanish government.

The Hispanic Day in Barcelona has shown that the PP and Vox have antagonistic strategies in Catalonia. The traditional demonstration of civil Spanish nationalism on Passeig de Gràcia, which gathered 1,700 people according to the Urban Guard, was marked by the electoral climate. Although the march's slogan was "Catalonia with Ceuta" and it was full of flags of the autonomous city, the calling of Spanish elections was the true protagonist. Santiago Abascal's party is aware that they are strong in the Principality, currently more so than the PP in the polls, but the Popular Party is weathering the storm of the sorpasso predicting the triumph that they take for granted in the State. The notable flight of voters or supporters of Aliança towards Vox in the Spanish elections –at least around 22%, according to the CEO– allows us to understand the multiplication of messages to seduce Sílvia Orriols' voters in the middle of October 12th. It should be noted that Aliança is not running in these elections.

The battle of Gabriel Rufián to unite the Spanish left will still provide chapters to be written. Despite the pact reached on Sunday that makes him the head of the list for ERC with an understanding with Podemos, which allows him to campaign across Spain, the spokesperson in Madrid has stepped forward to ensure that he is still working to unite Oriol Junqueras' organization with the progressive parties of the State. "I will try until the end," he said on X.

After a week of negotiations, ERC has confirmed that Gabriel Rufián will be the party's candidate in the upcoming general elections. It did so in a statement in which it announced that he will be the number one on the republicans' list for Barcelona. According to Rufián's circle, he has reached an understanding with Podem so that the purple party "does not run in Catalonia" and asks for the vote for ERC, something that sources from Oriol Junqueras' party leadership confirm.

High-voltage pre-campaign in Spain for the November 29th elections. In the middle of 2026, eight years after Pedro Sánchez reached the presidency of the Spanish government, the PP draws an apocalyptic scenario if it does not win hand-in-hand with Vox to push for a "decisive change," while the Spanish government promises, now for real, to solve housing problems with courage and fight against those who "pull the strings" and harm the working classes. In the Andalusian town of Dos Hermanas and in Madrid, socialists and conservatives have contrasted two apparently antagonistic models of the country using language that has long denoted aggression.

"We will not vote for Pedro Sánchez because we have been burned". That is how the secretary general of Junts, Jordi Turull, responded this week to journalist Ariadna Oltra on Els matins when she asked him what his party would do if they were decisive again in the Congress of Deputies. What has happened in these three years for Junts' conclusion to be this? What has broken and, above all when, if in the end it seems that the amnesty will be able to be applied to former president Carles Puigdemont? L'ARA has reconstructed the key moments of this tortuous relationship that began in the summer of 2023 after years of little contact following the Process.

Political earthquake in the Alt Empordà. The municipal government of Junts, led by Lídia Ferrer, has decided to keep Roger Pinart, the councillor of El Port de la Selva who chose the swastika over the espadrille, in one of the latest controversies related to Aliança Catalana. The leadership of Carles Puigdemont's party has demanded the immediate dismissal of Pinart –who is not a member of Junts but is part of the municipal executive–, but Ferrer has decided to give him "total support". In statements to ARA, Ferrer defends his "magnificent work as councillor for Security" at the city council, where he is the second deputy mayor, and downplays his controversial tweet in favor of the swastika. The mayor admits the clash with the Junts leadership, but makes it clear that she will in no case dismiss him and that the party must respect her decision.

Change of tone from Salvador Illa. This Wednesday was the first plenary session of Parliament after the total amnesty for Carles Puigdemont and the exiles, but also of the early election in Spain, and the President of the Generalitat has fully entered the pre-election campaign in the control session. The socialist leader, and great defender of Pedro Sánchez, has referred time and again to the Spanish elections of November 29 and has launched a forceful attack against the opposition. "Three acronyms, PP, Vox, and Junts; one single vote, blocking access to housing," he snapped, in reference to the two decrees that the three formations rejected last week.

Following the Constitutional Court's (TC) endorsement of the amnesty for the leaders of the 'Procés', all eyes are on former president Carles Puigdemont. His return to Catalonia, after nine years of exile, wavers between imminence and waiting for the right political moment, and right now it is unknown whether he will make it coincide with the general election campaign on November 29th or not. Supreme Court magistrate Pablo Llarena, however, has already lifted the arrest warrant that was against him, although several prominent figures from the former head of government's circle have publicly expressed that Puigdemont should return after the elections. A different view from the Spanish government, which reminds him that he has the green light for an immediate return: "Puigdemont could return today if he wanted to," stated the Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños, this morning in statements to SER. "It is a decision that is up to him," he added. For the moment, the Government has indeed granted Puigdemont's request for the office he holds as former president, which was located at Palau Centelles in Barcelona, to be moved to premises on Carrer Dr. Roux, 51-63, which are owned by the Generalitat, as reported by El País and confirmed by ARA.

The former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont has declared the end of the "political repression" stage following the 1-O, after the Constitutional Court fully endorsed the amnesty. The decision represents, he said, a defeat for the various Spanish public powers that have put obstacles in the way of the law's application "for strictly political reasons." The institutional appearance of the former head of Government took place this afternoon, a few hours after the Supreme Court also announced the lifting of his arrest warrant, which represents the first definitive step for him to return from exile to Catalonia. The leader of Junts has claimed the "enormous political importance" of the law, which disavows the repression and makes it evident that "this was not the way." However, he warned that the political conflict with the State remains in force: "In terms of the Catalonia-Spain relationship, nothing is solved today [...]. The amnesty is not in itself a solution," he claimed from Waterloo.

Definitely, Junts has made its own profile clear in Congress in a week where all eyes were on Carles Puigdemont's party. The pressure from the left had no effect and the 'juntaires' struck down the housing decrees, contributing to an institutional crisis that threatens to lead the State to new elections. The assessment the party makes is positive: they are the only Catalan party –besides the PP and Vox delegations– that has distanced itself from the proposals from Moncloa. In fact, 'juntaires' sources explain that they have not stopped receiving "congratulations" from small property owners, who had demanded they strike down the decrees (some of the letters were published by the party itself on social media).

Judicial timelines dictated that the final session of the trial against the national police officers who blinded the eye of the activist Roger Español would be held on October 1st, seven years after the day of the referendum in which the pro-independence activist was mutilated. The session began with a delay: it was suspended until one in the afternoon because the accused inspector had alleged "a health problem" and resumed when he returned from the hospital. All this has caused the trial to finally end on Friday. Thursday's session included statements from the inspector in charge of the operation, two sub-inspectors, and the officer who fired at Español. However, these statements were overshadowed by the final speech of Español's defense, which even resorted to a sentence by Manuel Marchena and another handed down for the Esther Quintana case, to dismantle the police version of 1-O.

One by one, the anti-eviction decree had been obtaining the necessary votes to move forward this Friday in Congress, until the moment for Junts arrived. In a remote meeting in the evening, the Junts leadership announced that it will join the 'no' if the Spanish government does not withdraw the decree to re-approve it—with various modifications—next week at the council of ministers. A standoff to which Moncloa has already responded by saying it will not withdraw them. Before, Podemos had confirmed that it will vote in favor of the two housing decrees approved following the Maricarmen case, and that the PNV and Coalición Canaria will give the yes to the first and the no to the second, also causing the automatic renewal of leases and compensation for tenants to fall.

Junts will bring to a vote this Thursday the reprobation of the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa. It has little chance of succeeding, because one of the Government's partners, ERC, has already closed the door to voting in favor. However, the 'juntaires', besides wanting to reprove Illa, also want Parliament to request the dismissal of the Ministers of Interior and Education, Núria Parlon and Esther Niubó, due to the crises open in their two departments. The CUP also proposes reproving the Government's management for the "systematic non-compliance" of Parliament's agreements, just like the PP, although in their case, due to the "subordination" they consider the Catalan executive has to the Spanish one and to the pro-independence parties. Beyond these requests, in this Thursday's debate the groups are also bringing to a vote a battery of measures regarding housing, precisely the week that two housing decrees, which the Council of Ministers approved on Tuesday after negotiations, are to be validated in Congress in extremis.

The second day of the general policy debate has served to confirm the distance between Salvador Illa's government and the main opposition party, Junts, but also to confirm the pressure that his partners, Esquerra and Comuns, are willing to exert until the end of the term. The 'Juntaires' are the ones who have attacked the President of the Generalitat the hardest: the president of the parliamentary group, Mònica Sales, has described Illa as being the "worst president that modern Catalonia has had" and has proposed censuring him. Esquerra and Comuns have not been at all flattering either; quite the contrary, they have urged him to comply once and for all with the investiture agreements and also those derived from this year's budget. Illa, as usual, has chosen to dodge the criticism, especially that from Junts, and with an optimistic tone has once again extended his hand to all political forces, except Vox and Aliança Catalana.

Steps forward for the amnesty law, even though two years later it has still not benefited four out of every ten prosecuted independence supporters. If in the month of June the rule had stalled at half, in recent weeks –after the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)– things are accelerating, according to data collected by Alerta Solidària. Specifically, 62% of independence supporters have already been amnestied, although, curiously, the list still does not include either the thirty people prosecuted at the Court of Auditors or the twelve members of the CDR accused of terrorism, the two cases in which the CJEU explicitly validated the measure of grace. Next week it is expected that the Constitutional Court (TC) will also take a decisive step so that Carles Puigdemont and the ministers of his Government pursued for embezzlement are amnestied.

Salvador Illa officially kicks off the political year with new promises, especially in housing. The President of the Generalitat announced in the general policy debate in Parliament that the Government will promote an anti-eviction fund; shared and temporary purchases between administrations and citizens who cannot afford the down payment on an apartment, and the expansion of emancipation loans for young people.

The streets are also applying pressure just hours before Pedro Sánchez's government brings the new housing decree-law to the Council of Ministers. Also in Barcelona, where this Monday the Spanish President, Pedro Sánchez, held various events and ended the day at the Palau de Congressos de Catalunya at the awards ceremony for La Vanguardia. 2,000 people according to the Guàrdia Urbana and 20,000 according to the organizers gathered on Avinguda Diagonal to demand that the new decree include, among other things, the indefinite extension of rental contracts and the suspension of evictions.