The migration crisis in Ceuta represents yet another serious complication for a weary government, now without permanent allies, but led by a president determined to continue and finish the legislative term. The hypothesis of a miracle that would allow the socialists to rebuild alliances and projects for a new stage in power next year seems increasingly implausible. Thursday's debate in Congress highlighted the solitude of Pedro Sánchez, criticized by all the parliamentary forces. Yet once again he managed to remain standing, without falling exhausted onto the canvas. Feijóo tries to strike the socialist leader with ever more force and knock him down for good. There is no longer any kind of respect or consideration between the two. And despite this, the feeling always remains in the air that the president of the PP will have to keep waiting, because his blows—which would be quite forceful against other opponents—do not have much effect on Sánchez, who shows no signs of looking for any other way out than to stake everything on one card whenever he decides to call the next general elections.

The new financing model has passed the first vote in the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF) with the support of Catalonia and the Canary Islands (in addition to the Spanish government) and the opposing vote of all the autonomous regions governed by the PP and the PSOE. The Minister of Economy and Finance, Alícia Romero (Caldes d'Estrac, 1976), is satisfied.

On June 28, Aliança Catalana fired its candidate in Figueres because he was maintaining a romantic relationship with a 16-year-old former student of his, whom he met while giving a talk on sports management. Arnau Liesa, born in 1995 and 30 years old, was not just another head of the list. He was one of the first mayoral candidates the party announced and had the unconditional support of the leadership, as shown by the fact that he was the organization secretary for the Alt Empordà region. He was a rising star and was also aiming to be in a leading position on the Girona list for Parliament.

Josep Vila (La Cellera de Ter, 1959) arrives at ARA conveying an optimism and energy that is unusual in recent times for the independence movement. And this is what he tries to convey.What does the ANC expect from this year's Diada?

The Public Prosecutor's Office is in favor of the National Court formally opening a criminal case regarding the massive entry of migrants into Ceuta at the end of July. This is stated in the report submitted by prosecutor Jesús Alonso, who concludes that the judge is competent to investigate the facts. After having received the pronouncement from the public ministry and the reports from the Spanish police and the Civil Guard, the magistrate María Tardón must now make a decision. The Prosecutor's Office argues that the “main result” of the migrants' entry affected Ceuta and justifies that the law of the judiciary allows Spanish jurisdiction to scrutinize “conduct developed outside the national territory” when there are “sufficient connecting elements” and when the “legally relevant effects” are projected onto interests protected by the Spanish legal system.

No script changes. The financing system was endorsed this Friday at the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF), which must now be approved by the Council of Ministers and begin its journey in the Congress of Deputies, where support is not guaranteed. It passed with the expected votes: support from the State, Catalonia, and also the Canary Islands, which reached an agreement in extremis with the Treasury in the month of July for an additional 1.337 billion. The PP and PSOE communities, on the other hand, voted against it. "It had been 17 years since a financing model was debated in a Fiscal and Financial Policy Council," began the Minister of Finance, Arcadi España, in a press conference after the meeting, showing himself satisfied with an agreement he defined as "historic" and "relevant." "This model is better than the current one, more solidary, and provides more resources to our country's welfare state," he concluded.

The Community of Madrid called for a "boycott" of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council to prevent the financing model from being approved this Friday, which will now begin its journey in the Council of Ministers and the Congress of Deputies. If the PP communities followed suit and stood up the meeting, the meeting could not be held due to a lack of quorum, vetoing the approval of the system. However, that was not the case: the popular barons did not follow Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Madrid was left alone in absenting itself from the meeting, since the rest of the regional Finance ministers, despite having voted no to the financing system, were indeed at the meeting. That is to say, there was only one empty chair at the table presided over by the Minister of Finance, Arcadi España, with all the representatives of the autonomous communities, including Catalonia, this Friday in Madrid. Only the Madrid Finance head, Rocío Albert López-Ibor, was missing.

It has been almost two months since the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) endorsed the amnesty, but, for the moment, nothing has been done. Spanish courts keep numerous cases blocked, even those directly affected by the CJEU's decision, such as that of the CDR and the Court of Auditors. The latest decision, this Thursday, comes from the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), which keeps the case against Josep Maria Jové and Lluís Salvadó, two of the officials of the sub-government of October 1st, suspended. The TSJC presented a preliminary ruling to European justice in 2024 asking whether embezzlement could be amnestied. Since the CJEU has not yet responded to this question, the magistrates Fernando Lacaba, Jesús María Barrientos and Carlos Ramos –who signed the interlocutory order–, reaffirm their decision to continue waiting.

The new academic year for undergraduate students in Catalonia has already begun, or is about to. Some will go to university for the first time: this year, nearly 60,000 have pre-enrolled in one of the Catalan public universities. Mind you, only 6 out of 10 will study at the center they had chosen as their first preference, a structural challenge that has been dragging on for years. When they finish (and the majority will), they will be part of the nearly 40% of people aged 15 or over in our country who have higher education, including university degrees or higher vocational training.

Judge Manuel Marchena used the concept of environmental violence for the first time against four of the protesters who surrounded Parliament in 2011 to try to obstruct the passage of deputies when the budgets consolidating the cuts were to be approved. None of them committed a violent act, but they were sentenced to three years in prison for the mere fact of attending a demonstration in which crimes could have been committed. Once the foundations were laid, Marchena himself used "environmental violence" to justify the sentence against the leaders of the Procés.

The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, and the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, have met with the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Kyiv. Illa conveyed to him his "commitment" and "solidarity" on behalf of Catalonia, and "showed his support" in the war against the Russian invasion, Ukraine's potential future accession to the European Union, and the potential use of frozen Russian assets located within EU territory for the reconstruction of his country. "It has been a very fruitful meeting in which we were able to express not only the desire to cooperate, but also the desire to learn from a country that has shown a resilience that I believe must be highly valued," the Catalan leader remarked.

The Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF) is expected to validate this Friday the proposal for a new financing model put forward by the Spanish government, in coordination with the Generalitat and ERC. The Ministry of Finance, which holds half of the votes, has a guaranteed majority because it only needs one regional minister to vote in favor, and it will have at least two: Catalonia and the Canary Islands. But there is a loophole to torpedo the calendar, at least temporarily: if half of the members of the CPFF do not show up, the meeting will not be valid, as established by article 10 of the organization's regulations.

One of the secondary protagonists of Pedro Sánchez's appearance at the Congress of Deputies to give explanations for the management of the Ceuta crisis has been the repeated demand by Junts, Bildu and the PNV for the Spanish government to transfer immigration powers to Catalonia and the Basque Country. ERC has not made any reference to it, but also supports it. The one who opened the door was Miriam Nogueras: “We want them so that Catalonia stops paying for the bad decisions of Spanish governments and starts doing the work that clearly has not been done,” she proclaimed during her speech. It was Junts who, in January 2024, placed this demand on the political agenda after wresting the commitment from the PSOE in exchange for the first three decrees of the legislature. It took a year to materialize in black and white, but the Podem veto has prevented it from prospering.

Between May 17 and 18, 2021, 10,000 people entered Ceuta from Morocco in the last major migration crisis—up to the present—in the autonomous city. Coinciding with those dates, the mobile phone of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, was infected with the Pegasus spyware. So were those of the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles; the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska; and the Minister of Agriculture and former Spanish ambassador to Morocco, Luis Planas. Who spied on them? As with the mass entry this summer in Ceuta, the Spanish government claims it has no certainty, but from the first minute, internal investigations (and common sense) have pointed to the Moroccan secret services. This Thursday, from Congress, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, took the opportunity to recall it: "What document or clue was on your phone for you to behave this way? Why are you afraid of Morocco? What does Morocco know about you?".

Pedro Sánchez faced one of the most difficult appearances of his presidency. He had to account for the management in Ceuta, immersed in a humanitarian and social crisis due to the massive entry of migrants on July 30 and 31. But not only that: it was a complicated day because just this Wednesday a police report emerged that pointed to Morocco and put the president's narrative against the ropes. Sánchez has nuanced his speech by slightly hardening his tone towards the Alawite regime. He has maintained that there is "no solid evidence" to suggest that Morocco "planned and executed" the massive entry of migrants, but he has admitted that the Moroccan gendarmerie was passive at the border.

The European Union repeats like a mantra that Morocco is a reliable partner and, despite growing suspicions about Rabat's involvement in the migration crisis in Ceuta, it has treaded carefully when it comes to making any kind of statement that could anger the Moroccan regime. Community sources avoid reacting to the possible link between the Mohamed VI regime and the massive entry of immigrants into the autonomous city and limit themselves to responding that it is "an internal affair" that must be clarified by the Spanish authorities.

It was July 26, 1999, and Juan Carlos I could not hold back his tears: he was in a prominent place, according to the chronicles of that time, in the procession that was saying goodbye to the King of Morocco, Hassan II. The Spanish monarch was thus bidding farewell to a person dear to him beyond the diplomatic relationship that existed between Spain and Morocco at that time, he was saying goodbye to an "older brother." That is why he said to Mohammed VI: "Now I am your older brother." This bond, which helped to refine the relationship between Madrid and Rabat on many occasions, has it been maintained with King Felipe VI? What has changed now? What effect could the current monarch's visit to Ceuta, which Pedro Sánchez has announced, have? Figures who have experienced Spain-Morocco relations firsthand and experts in the field explain it to ARA.

Hundreds of people gathered this Wednesday in Barcelona due to the migration crisis in Ceuta, but unlike other cities in the State, in the Catalan capital they concentrated in two opposing sides. Half a thousand anti-fascists stood up to the call supported by Vox and Núcleo Nacional, but also the PP, which defended the Spanish nature of the autonomous city and advocated for the expulsion of all the immigrants who still remain there. Tension did not take long to arrive.