Anti-Catalan controversy in Northern Catalonia. The far-right municipal government of the symbolic city of Elne has decided to celebrate for the first time the partition of Catalonia as a result of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 –a consequence of the Catalan defeat against Castile in the Reapers' War–, which meant that the Catalan regions of Roussillon, Capcir, Upper Cerdanya, Vallespir, and Conflent remained under the yoke of the Kingdom of France. It will do so in an event this Saturday organized by the local executive of the ultra Steve Fortel –who supported the collaborationist Marshal Henri Pétain and who ran with the local candidacy Elne à Cœur, which is positioned even further to the right than the National Rally– to exalt the dismemberment of Catalonia. The initiative has generated a lot of controversy.

New earthquake in Salou, with harsh accusations against the mayor, Pere Granados (Sumem-PSC). This Monday, ERC publicly accused him of being directly behind a neighborhood Instagram account, Vecinos de Salou, for "campaigning and playing dirty" against political rivals without "showing his face" and behind the appearance of a neighborhood entity. This Tuesday, Vox went even further and announced a criminal complaint for libel and slander against the mayor. This newspaper has verified that the email address associated with the Meta social network account matches the mayor's institutional email, which would point to a case of using fake accounts to wage ideological war on opponents. Vox also points to the coincidence of the phone numbers. L'ARA has contacted the mayor, who has conveyed that he will make "no statement or assessment regarding this matter".

When Junts signed its accession to the liberal centrists of the European Democratic Party (EDP) the natural move was its integration into the Renew liberal group of the European Parliament. Within Junts, multiple voices were clear about this path, which reinforces the commitment to centrism, the same as the PNV and what Convergència had followed. However, all of this clashes with the will of the Junts MEP. As he expressed publicly this Monday, Toni Comín has reservations about joining this parliamentary group once his rights as an MEP have been recognized, following his return from exile. Junts prefers not to make any public comment on the matter despite the questions from this newspaper.

Criminal complaint by Junts for reckless homicide against Renfe, Adif, and the state's Directorate General of Roads for the Gelida accident on January 20th, in which there was one fatality. The Junts members made public this Monday the document they filed on October 20th, when the four-month deadline expired to comply with the request made by Parliament to the Government to report these rail operators, which the executive did not carry out. The crimes listed in the document are reckless homicide, injuries, as well as crimes against workers' rights and for catastrophic risk.

The scenarios are changing and the timid recovery in the polls in the last few days for the PSOE –which started from very low in the surveys– may change after the Urda railway tragedy. Until now, even though Pedro Sánchez had climbed positions in the surveys of the last few days and the PP had suffered a decline, there was a trend that remained: Vox continued to rise and had options to join forces with the Popular Party to steer the Spanish government. However, the downward trend of Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party has generated unease among the ranks of Santiago Abascal's followers to the point of fearing whether a right-wing sum to reach the Moncloa will be possible, according to Vox sources consulted by ARA. In fact, this fear is also spreading within the PP, as this newspaper has noted.

The Urda train accident this Wednesday, the January disaster in Adamuz, the Ceuta crisis, the DANA in the Valencian Community, the COVID-19 pandemic, or even the summer wildfires. Hundreds of accumulated deaths that Vox has not hesitated to use as a political weapon against the Spanish government. In fact, the far-right formation led by Santiago Abascal depicts an apocalyptic Spain presided over by Pedro Sánchez, who "provokes" or "aggravates" major crises, among other things because he is, in their opinion, a "psychopath," "traitor," "madman," and "bastard." A "son of a bitch," as heard at every Vox rally, even though Abascal prefers not to use this insult.

Despite their non-aggression pact, in these Spanish elections a particular battle is being waged between the PP and Vox to mark territory within the conservative bloc. The extreme right is the one rising in the polls, although it still remains far from the Popular Party. In Catalonia, however, it is Vox that is winning the battle, at least the symbolic one. In the right-wing agreement for the Senate, collaboration has been agreed upon in 23 provinces, which implies that Vox is withdrawing from six constituencies, the PP from three, and that Santiago Abascal's party is only presenting one Senate candidate (out of the three possible) in 14 more constituencies. However, Vox is the one establishing itself as the reference in Girona and Tarragona.

Junts would be willing to invest a socialist president after November 29th, provided that the PSOE meets the demands of Carles Puigdemont's party, and the candidate for president is not Pedro Sánchez. The Junts candidate for the Spanish elections, Miriam Nogueras, set the party's position this Tuesday for the investiture of the future president of the state government and clarified what was meant bythe party would not invest either Pedro Sánchez or Alberto Núñez Feijóo, as the top leaders had expressed in recent days. Junts will not remain on the sidelines of the State's governability; quite the contrary, as Nogueras and her running mates have championed the "useful policy" that they have developed in the Spanish Cortes this term. In fact, the members of Junts want to be decisive again after November 29th.

The use of Catalan does not stop retreating and many eyes are turning to the school, where the trend is not reversed despite the linguistic immersion of the students. But immersion is also threatened: the courts have been collecting the demands of various entities and parties to increase the use of Spanish up to 25% and, if the PP governs from November 29, the plan of the populars involves exporting the Galician model —which requires a minimum of 50% Spanish— to Catalan classrooms. And this is despite the fact that this same week the mayor of Badalona and head of the PP list in Catalonia on 29-N, Xavier García Albiol, acknowledged that there is "a very serious problem" due to the "retreat" of Catalan and asked that action be taken to reverse the trend – words, on RTVE, that sparked the fury of various Spanish nationalist entities–. For the moment, the scheme with which the party leadership in Catalonia works is inspired by the report that in 2018 was drawn up, curiously, by an ERC minister: Josep Bargalló.

Now only the president of the 1-O, Carles Puigdemont, is missing. The exile ends nine years after several pro-independence leaders chose this path to respond to the State's repression. Six of the seven exiles have already returned, with former ministers Lluís Puig and Toni Comín having just arrived thanks to the lifting of the arrest warrants. In recent years, the former secretary general of ERC Marta Rovira, former minister Meritxell Serret, former CUP deputy Anna Gabriel, and former minister Clara Ponsatí have also been able to free themselves from exile. Nine years later, what is the balance sheet of the exile?

From the Parliament, "the Minister of Culture was expelled from it illegitimately and with the approval of some parties present here" for the simple fact of "setting up the ballot boxes". This is how clearly Lluís Puig expressed himself, from the lectern of the hemicycle, upon his return to the seat of sovereignty of the Principality after nine years of exile, surrounded by the top leadership of the independence movement. A gesture such as removing the yellow ribbon from his seat and raising it as a sign of victory was the penultimate chapter in closing the stage of repression in Catalan politics. Only one ribbon remains on a seat, in a prominent position. It belongs to former President Carles Puigdemont, who is expected to return from exile after the Spanish elections, once the arrest warrants have been lifted and all that remains is for the amnesty to be definitively applied to him, just as it is for Puig and Toni Comín, who also returned to the State this Thursday —on Sunday he will do so in Catalonia— to collect his credentials as a Member of the European Parliament.

It had been 3,272 days since the singers of Terrassa projected their voices for the freedom of political prisoners and exiles in front of the City Hall. Specifically, since November 14, 2017, when they began, and nine years of painful exile have already passed. "Rain, snow, or heat": the daily meeting was unavoidable among the singers who attended with varying regularity. Some, with songbooks to fund anti-repressive solidarity. This Wednesday, however, and despite singing the same songs as always – such as I want to be free, in addition to the national anthem–, the hundreds gathered who filled the square felt an incomparable emotion: it was the day of Lluís Puig's return. The former Minister of Culture chose this evening event of the pro-independence collective to put an end to his exile, once the arrest warrants by the Supreme Court were lifted –the archiving of the case still remains, which should happen soon.

Business-oriented move by Vox. In the lists for the Congress of Deputies for the constituency of Barcelona, to which ARA has had access, the economic guru of the radical right-wing party, Ignacio Fontcuberta, is incorporated as number 3. Santiago Abascal has decided to place his finance man to build a bridge "with the business fabric" in Catalonia, according to sources familiar with the operation. Even more so considering his background as an executive, which has allowed him to hold a prominent position in the party.

The Minister of Culture during the 1-O government, Lluís Puig, returned this Wednesday to Catalonia after seven years of exile. His return had transpired in the last few hours and the Junts deputy crossed the border this morning. “The time has come,” wrote Puig on X shortly after 7:15 a.m., a message with which he confirmed that he will celebrate his return this same Wednesday at an event in Terrassa, his city, and that he plans to attend the Parliament plenary session in person on Thursday.

It has been a year and a half since the death of a key man for Catalan politics as was Lluís Prenafeta, right-hand man of former president Jordi Pujol and representative of a way of doing things from Convergència since the restoration of the Generalitat. This Monday, a tribute event was held with prominent Convergent representatives such as former president Artur Mas; Pujol himself –who was the protagonist, with a speech of praise that he himself jokingly said was "a torture" for the audience–; former mayor of Barcelona Xavier Trias; the leader of Junts in the Catalan capital, Jordi Martí Galbis; former ministers Quim Forn and Germà Gordó –president of Convergents–, and former CDC leader, David Madí. The Espai Línia was packed to the rafters, so Gordó and Madí had to remain standing the whole time.

Enthusiasm in the Catalan PP for who will be enthroned this Sunday as the PP candidate for Barcelona in the upcoming Spanish elections. The mayor of Badalona, Xavier García Albiol, has been selected as the Populars' candidate for Barcelona with the fundamental task of being the antidote to Vox, especially considering the great growth of the radical right-wing party in the Principality. Once the elections were brought forward, it immediately became clear that the most beloved person within the Catalan PP is Albiol. Furthermore, La Vanguardia was already pointing out that the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, was considering betting on him as a candidate.

For more than a year, lawyer Miriam González has been flirting with the possibility of taking the step into politics. Dedicated to promoting initiatives from civil society like España Mejor, with the goal of influencing public policies based on democratic regeneration, she has finally decided to run in the November 29th elections with a new political party: Democracy 21. The group, which was presented last Saturday in Madrid, aims to make a mark in the upcoming elections as a centrist option, despite having expected general elections next year and not immediately. At the same time, parties like Citizens have become involved in the form of a coalition with the hope of reviving the reformist space. Be that as it may, how does Miriam González plan to stand out in a context of maximum polarization between the right and the left?

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.