Look: today, as everyone knows, the school year was supposed to start, and it has not started due to the teachers' strike. Just as they ended the last school year, groups of teachers have cut off traffic on the Barcelona ring roads first thing in the morning. With the difference that today was a very special day for the students, the first day of school. The one in which there is anxiety, excitement, nerves, emotions, expectations… That is why I think that, regardless of how we have arrived here, a country that begins the school year with a teachers' strike is a country that has hit rock bottom. Denying the first day of excitement at school may be a preparation for the disappointments that will come with adult life, but it is a failure for everyone, that is already understood.It is a failure for everyone, with shared responsibilities. There are foresight problems: if Catalonia goes from 6 to more than 8 million inhabitants in 25 years, the school system must be sized accordingly. If the school is to be inclusive, that is, to cater to students with special needs, more hands are needed. If it is to be in Catalan, it must be taken into account that today we are a multilingual country, which makes immersion difficult. If it is also desired, logically, that students leave school knowing how to read, write, calculate, reason, and speak well, then teachers must be excellent and, therefore, one must be demanding in access to the teaching profession. And teachers must be paid well. There is a problem of political authority. The mess of the PISA tests and these two wasted months of summer holidays have shown that there is a functional problem in the Department of Education. All the ministers have had problems with the unions, but now we have gone from the unrest of the Cambray era to that of the Niubó era, as if they did not master the teaching civil service and did not understand the effects of the decisions they make, such as agreeing to that reduction of the power of school principals, and doing so with minority unions in the sector. The unions cannot give many lessons either. The USTEC approved an agreement with the Department of Education last May and asked for a vote in favor of the pact, but the majority of teachers voted against it. The result is a Government without authority and unions whose representativeness has been damaged. But, look, on a morning like this, taking an inventory of responsibilities is not enough. We must be able to break this negative vicious circle. And we must break it by affirming that we can do it. Catalonia has a very long pedagogical tradition. The department has resources (they are never enough, but they are not few, and it is promised that there will be more). The first ones who would not want to strike are the teachers. And in Catalonia, the school is under Spanish judicial and political attack. If there are so many of us who want to get out of this, we must be able to get out of it. And making a great country agreement for education, thinking about the students and the future of the country, is increasingly necessary.Look, today the results of the PISA tests have been published, from which Catalonia has been excluded because the sample was not valid. Well then, Spain as a whole obtains the worst results in its history. For example, the Spanish results in reading have plummeted.If we apply the results of Catalonia, with this invalid sample that was apparently better designed to produce better results, we find that the Catalan results remain below those of Madrid –which heads the state ranking with 477 points– and surpass Castile and León (472) by only two points and Cantabria (470) by four. Catalonia also remains ahead of the Spanish average (457) and of the European Union and the OECD (both with 463 points). Even so, this unreal Catalonia would still be very far from the international top 5, which ranges from 488 points in the United Kingdom to 525 in Japan. A first day of school without classes must call us to a commitment so that it never happens again. We must be able to do it, shaking off selfish and defeatist approaches. Good morning.

Tomorrow school begins, and it will start with the teachers' strike that the unions already announced when the school year ended, around Saint John's Day. The Government has not managed to deactivate the strike, even though it has had two months to do so. The unions feel strong and are carrying momentum based on real shortcomings, dragged on for a long time, and this protest speed of the unions cannot be stopped with a standard negotiation. Education in Catalonia needs a top-to-bottom reformulation, and the turbulence that will begin tomorrow will continue for several months. We already said it here last week: if there is any public service that requires a generous, country-wide pact, it is education. But today all the front-page headlines are for the victory of Alternative for Germany in Saxony. The far-right wins in a German state talking about closing borders, expelling criminals, and reclaiming Germany for the Germans and not for immigrants. The reasons for this victory resonate here: voters who feel abandoned by the traditional parties, who have become impoverished, who have seen the street landscape change, resentful of what they consider the failure of reunification, who pay many taxes that do not improve public services, etc.This resentment based on real events, but which is conveniently stirred up by the verbal violence of social networks, ends in a protest vote, the one that hurts the most, against the system.The problem is that these parties do not have solutions for these problems, and in the long run they only end up making things worse. And behind the anti-immigration discourse there is an anti-democracy discourse. This vote is an invitation to gradually change democracy for an authoritarian and violent system (Russia, China, Trump's United States) that seems to solve problems because it does not accept the limits of these trifles called laws or human rights.It is true that the usual parties do not provide the best answers either, and for a long time, the normal, ordinary people who used to vote for them have become fed up because they do not listen, and because they do not notice that the wonders they explain during the campaign improve their lives. Agreed, the solution to serious problems is never quick, but the lifelong parties or ideological spaces are more comfortable with dialectical fighting than defending people from powerful private interests. An example: this morning President Illa was interviewed on 3cat and he assured that the government of the Generalitat is assessing whether to take the leader of Aliança Catalana to the Prosecutor's Office, Sílvia Orriols, for her tweets about the fatal attack in Manresa.Ricard Ustrell: Will they report Sílvia Orriols' tweets to the Public Prosecutor's Office as a hate crime?Salvador Illa: Whenever it is observed that there are behaviors that violate the legal framework and that incite hatred, the Government will act. We are assessing it, and if that is the case, in this instance and with everyone we will act the same.

The week ends with the hangover from yesterday's debate in Congress. Just 24 hours later, what we anticipated yesterday on the fly is already being confirmed: Sánchez's explanations arrived late, remain overshadowed by the reality of the thousands of people who are still wandering through Ceuta and, therefore, the Spanish president is doomed. Neither the opposition nor the investiture partners believe that Morocco had nothing to do with it (it is impossible for the illegal displacement of seventy thousand people to go unnoticed by a regime like Morocco) and therefore Sánchez moves between the figure of someone who, for the sake of state, does not want to antagonize a neighbor with the capacity to complicate your life and that of a president who is a victim of blackmail by Morocco. The fact that Sánchez is sentenced is a metaphor, but for the PP and Vox it is a wish. Feijóo said yesterday that “Sánchez will pay for his management, at the polls and in the courts”. And the fact is that Vox has long been reminding that Sánchez can be tried for treason, a procedure that is regulated in article 102 of the Constitution and which would be handled by the criminal chamber of the Supreme Court and which consists of an initiative by a quarter of the members of the Congress of Deputies and requires the approval of half plus one of the deputies (this would be 176), and the PP and Vox alone do not reach it, they are 169.Beyond when and how the legislative term ends, the case has other equally serious dimensions. For example, the power of Morocco, an ally of the United States, with a good relationship with Israel, and which receives money from the EU to regulate migratory flows. This gives it great bargaining power. As our head of International, Francesc Millan, explains today, in this column in which he draws the contrast between how the EU stands together when Russia attacks, but when the problem has been at its southern border, the problem was Spanish, not European. Mind you, while we talk about geopolitics, yesterday more than 80 people appeared dead on a migrant boat that arrived in the Canary Islands. The boat had left Gambia 26 days ago. After decades of apparently predictable life, we have entered the era of life under threat, a hybrid, indirect, disruptive threat that prevents making plans and living under the impression (more or less based on real events) that life depends on us and not on external, geopolitical factors.Speaking of violent disruptions, yesterday the film Cronos, about the attacks on La Rambla and Cambrils in July 2017.I had the opportunity to watch it and I recommend it to you. You start watching it with a knot in your stomach and you finish it the same way.The pace set by the director is very high and sustained, the script is clear, the acting is competent, and the production is well-resourced. The story is told, above all, from within the Mossos, from Trapero to the commanders who led the capture of the terrorists, which lasted four days, passing through the Mossos' communication director, Patrícia Plaja, and her impeccable crisis communication during those days. The political dispute between the Spanish government and the Generalitat over the management and information regarding the attack is noted, as well as the regrettable leak of The Mossos-The note to make the Mossos and the Generalitat look bad. What is not provided as context is that there was only a month and a half left until October 1st. And the state of shock in Ripoll is also well noted. Not so much the story of boys who were apparently integrated but were ripe for radicalization. But since we are talking about a two-hour film and not a six-part series, many narrative threads come to mind that remain to be unfolded.

Pedro Sánchez appeared this morning in Congress and began by making a profession of Spanish identity: he recalled that the lions at the door of Congress were sculpted with bronze cast from cannons captured in Morocco in the 19th century and that Ceuta and Melilla will be Spanish “until the end of time”.He has built a narrative about the government's response, in fact, he has flooded the chamber with figures, data, days, and hours, a flood that he ended up summarizing in one figure: 72 hours after the mass entry, more than 90% of the people who entered, 63,000 people, had already returned to Morocco. And that this had been done in collaboration with Morocco. And that there was no police report warning of what was about to come:And he topped it off: he has ordered the publication of all police documents regarding prevention. He said that the government has nothing to hide.It is likely that Sánchez's explanations will not be of much use, politically. Because they arrive late, very late, weeks late, during which he has been on vacation. And because Ceuta is still not okay. And because the police report that El Español published yesterday points to Morocco, due to the passivity of the Moroccan police, and leaves Minister Marlaska exposed. Passivity that we all saw. Does the minister not control his police? Does he not have information from the police? Ceuta may be the end of Sánchez's escapade. Our journalist in Madrid, Núria Orriols, says so:“It will be difficult for him to get out of this, this time, Pedro Sánchez”.And because apart from the right and the far-right, which have long wanted him out of government and in prison, the mismanagement of Ceuta has left those who are horrified by the likely prospect of a PP and Vox government without arguments.Yesterday's demonstrations in the evening were about three things: in favor of Ceuta, against Sánchez, and making an apology for the far-right. All three things simultaneously. In what proportions? Ceuta first, yes, but it was the motive that legitimized and justified a protest. Without losing sight of the fact that when we say Ceuta we are talking about two things: the massive entry that the people of the city have been suffering for a month and the disastrous management of the Spanish government. It is a complicated panorama for Pedro Sánchez that we will see what repercussions it may end up having, but it is undoubtedly the biggest dent in the bodywork of a government that has already taken quite a few hits.Good morning.

If you want to better understand the world we have started living in for the past few months, there are a couple of news items of the day that are very helpful.The day before yesterday, Pedro Sánchez stated that Morocco did not instigate the massive entry of people into Ceuta, that it had been the work of Russia and Israel, who had spread through the networks in Morocco that Spain was waiting for workers with open arms, so to speak. Putin himself has denied that Russia had anything to do with it, and the Israeli government has also denied it. But this morning, the digital newspaper El Español published that the Spanish police have informed the judge that the massive entry into Ceuta was guided by Moroccan gendarmes under the orders of plainclothes agents with the aim of collapsing the border control system and eliminating Spain's response capacity.

When the Minister of Education herself describes the PISA blunder as "very serious", when she admits that the problem could have been solved in time, when she reveals that the State warned on seven occasions about the error in the sample, almost everything has been said.Even more so: when the disaster costs the number two of the department her position, a senior official is subjected to disciplinary proceedings for “omissions that constitute carelessness or negligence in the fulfillment of established obligations” and two more proceedings are opened for serious misconduct against two civil servants for a “presumed breach of their obligations and duties as public officials”, it is pertinent to ask what is happening in the Department of Education, because we are not facing errors, but attitudes, attitudes sustained over time, so sustained (seven warnings!) that we join the hypothesis formulated today in our editorial that it was not bad faith. Was it a matter of excluding students from the sample who would probably perform poorly? Was it a matter of protecting the Government from the disrepute of a fall to even lower positions in the European school rankings? Or an attempt to harm it, considering that President Illa focused on the PISA report as soon as he took office as president, when he signed a collaboration agreement with the OECD in January 2025 to improve the skills of Catalan students in four years and redirect the results of the educational system? Well, not only has there been no redirection, but there has been an international failure of our Government, an executive that came to demonstrate good management, opposed to the independence fervor of a whole decade that was considered lost.

We are happy to meet with you all as we begin this new season of daily analysis at l'ARA. Happy and especially responsible, because the 2026/27 academic year awaits us, which would be correct but frivolous to call "exciting". Because it will be a serious year. Just look at the crisis in Ceuta, the start of the school year with the same conflict it ended with, the expectation that the Supreme Court will finally apply the amnesty law and President Puigdemont will return, the possibility that Pedro Sánchez will advance the elections, the municipal elections in May, which will mean a first confirmation of the support that Aliança Catalana has in the polls and in conversations, the midterm elections in the United States, and that's without mentioning the open wars in Ukraine and Iran. And this is only what can be glimpsed, not to mention what Rubén Blades said, "life gives you surprises".

This is the last analysis of the season and, therefore, it is time to take stock. If we talk about moods, we arrive at the holidays worried because many folders have not been closed: the amnesty has not yet reached the exiles or the main disqualified individuals, the new financing system is very slow, almost as slow as the improvement of the Rodalies service or the Adif works, and the education system in Catalonia, which left for the holidays amidst strikes and will begin equally amidst protests, has hit rock bottom with the discrediting of the Department of Education and the lamentable final episode of the PISA tests. It only remains for us to know that the ministry warned the department in April 2025 (and not, as had been said, in March 2026), that there was a very high student exclusion rate, but the warning went from technicians to technicians and they did not communicate it to the top of the political sphere. Why? It is not known and this fuels suspicions that since the results of the tests would be very bad, no one wanted to take responsibility for the hot potato. In fact, the explanations were given at the end of July, late and poorly, and it is all a jumble of inconcisions about departments that were being reformed or the coincidence with other tests. All this does not generate confidence.It has been a year of protests in education, healthcare, and farming. Social discontent related to the loss of purchasing power has continued to grow. Because unemployment has fallen to pre-2008 crisis levels and everyone has a job, but salaries don't cover the end of the month. Housing is a pipe dream, while we hear about the construction of thousands of social and affordable rental apartments by the Generalitat. To be fair, these are measures that can generate a sustained supply for all budgets, but of course, apartments are not built overnight.We are checking the effects of the enormous demographic growth that Catalonia has experienced in the last 25 years. Those of us who are of a certain age still remember the announcement of "we are 6 million", and today we have already passed 8 and some are talking about 10. The seams of the country have burst everywhere and subsumed by common regime autonomous policies, we do not have the necessary fiscal and budgetary sovereignty to make a country tailor-made for us. That state investments in Catalonia in 2025 were 8.6% is outrageous. A consequence of this panorama is the electoral boom that Catalan Alliance will experience next year in the municipal elections according to all the polls, a boom that would announce a surpassing in the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia which, if not brought forward, would be in the spring of 2028. There is citizen exhaustion, a loss of confidence in the usual parties and leaderships, the ghost of existential linguistic anguish has reappeared and we have not fully recovered from the Process's Dragon Khan. If we add to this the great capacity of the far-right to turn the most primary identity drives into votes, the demographic future indicates that in Catalonia the same thing will end up happening that has already happened in other places in Europe and the world.The country has talent, it retains the knack for doing things well, it has reserves of self-esteem, and it has seen it all to be able to react to adversity. The country is more solid than it currently appears and it falters just as everyone falters. The problem is that it lacks the minimum sovereignty needed to make its own decisions. And for all of this, we go on vacation (and we are thankful for it) knowing that next season we will face the same problems and that the current solutions will fall short.Good summer and see you soon.

Finally, yesterday we were able to hear the explanations that the Minister of Education, Esther, Niubó, gave in Parliament about the PISA tests disaster. Her intervention is summarized in this headline:“The Government has not clarified the origin of the PISA tests error”. The minister admitted the error, assumed “its seriousness”, cleared the centers, therefore, accepted that the responsibility lay with the Department of Education, but four months later she still does not know whose it is. And, at most, she ventured a hypothesis: that since on the same dates there were other exams organized by the Department, perhaps the coincidence of days led to the error in the sample.Niubó: “This means that the same 51 educational centers that were PISA samples also had to apply, with very little time difference, two assessments subject to different frameworks, that of PISA and the end-of-stage tests for fourth year of ESO, which, as I said before, were census-based last year and all students took them. And this similarity of percentages, combined with the fact that they were the same centers, with a coinciding schedule, but with different frameworks applied almost at the same time, allows us to suggest that confusion could have been generated at the center about the criteria to be used, transferring to the PISA tests exemption criteria or non-participation practices specific to the Catalan end-of-stage tests. But, I insist, this is a hypothesis.”It is inadmissible that the Government still does not have the conclusions of a problem it was warned about in March. And in this regard, President Illa's comments, who is in Vietnam on an official trip these days, do not help at all. The president said yesterday: "It's not about blaming anyone." President, let's see, we are not playing cards, this is not about blame, but rather we are scrutinizing a serious error that, incidentally, greatly harms the narrative of a government that defined itself by its management (by good management, it is understood) in contrast to the "collision" pro-State independence governments, which were focused on conflict and not on what really matters to people. And when someone makes a serious mistake, it is necessary to identify who has slipped up, who has not done their job well. This talk of blame is a dialectical way out to give the appearance of seriousness to an internal review that is not being very serious because, as I said, four months have passed and all the minister can say is that she is still in the realm of hypotheses. Of course not all of the problems in education in Catalonia are in the department of education, but in view of its limited capacity to deal with them, it is clear that one of the problems in education in Catalonia is the department responsible for it, now and before. And I end up talking about Mallorca. Yesterday we denounced police violence against the protesters of “Less tourism and more life”. There is a painful contrast between civic concern, expressed peacefully, and the abuse of power with which it was met. And on this subject I want to reproduce a fragment of today's article by the Mallorcan Sebastià Alzamora, who says it with much more precise words, as befits someone who lives there:“Mallorcans, as a society, have a certain reputation for being apathetic and conformist. I won't say it's not a reputation that is deserved to some extent, but it has a more interesting flip side. This same society also forms a country of sensible and elegant people, with a deep allergy to bad manners, rudeness, exaggerated gestures, and violence in any form. For the citizens of this country called Mallorca, there are few things less interesting than losing one's temper and irony, becoming overbearing, solemn, or intransigent. And let's not even mention becoming aggressive: all of this, in Mallorca, is frankly frowned upon. If even reasonable proposals, expressed in a civic manner, are met with batons, in the end the government will have nothing left. Because as Alzamora says, “On Sunday, something institutional broke.”Good morning.

The Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, is appearing this afternoon in Parliament to explain the Generalitat's incredible failure to organize the PISA tests. As we know, the story could not be more lamentable, no matter how you look at it: the OECD warned in March. No information was given until July, until a Friday at the end of July, to be exact, when they sent a director general to face the music and not the minister, and they describe an error in the sample of students examined, which far exceeds any explainable decimal error, as a specific and technical problem.As we explain today, the alteration of the PISA sample in Catalonia far exceeds that of any country in the latest report. It reminded me of the day when the Generalitat, under the presidency of Pere Aragonès, did not know how to correctly convene a competitive examination. With the difference that this PISA issue is an international embarrassment. And I prefer to believe it was a (serious) fiasco rather than have to think it's a way to circumvent results that will be poor given the problems that have been affecting Education in Catalonia for years. It is enough to remember that we finished the course amidst strikes and we will start it the same way. The problem with Education is in the classrooms, which are a reflection of all of society's problems, in the training of teachers, in the authority of principals, in the tension of an inclusive school that lacks the means to be worthy of the name, in a Catalonia that has been getting poorer, etc. But something is happening in the Department of Education and, by extension, in the Government, when it signs a union pact that inflames the unions, closes an agreement with the OECD to improve teaching, and, one year later, makes a big mistake in the sample for the PISA tests. And in another order of indignation, we have the multitudinous demonstration yesterday in Palma de Mallorca against the excess of tourism that has led the island, like the rest of the Balearic Islands, to collapse. There is no need for many explanations as to why the protest, because in Catalonia we know well what tourist collapse is, which affects ecology, mobility, housing, culture, language, etc. The manifesto of the call has a quite explicit paragraph on the effect of tourism: “It invaded our coasts, then our towns and our cities and is currently occupying our homes. Mallorca cannot fit any more hotels, cannot fit any more coffee franchises, fast food or cheesecakes, and cannot fit any more tourists! Mallorca at its limit! Less tourism, more life!” Such a demonstration is a sign that must be listened to and attended to with urgency. But everything suggests that it will not be so, for now, because the Balearic government and tourist interests are one. The proof is what happened in the end:

Today we have published an article that begins by saying “Brussels reminds…”.Specifically, “Brussels reminds Spanish courts that they must apply the CJEU ruling on the amnesty”. The news could continue by saying “Brussels reminds and Madrid disobeys”, or “Brussels reminds and Madrid doesn't remember”, because the disregard shown by the Court of Auditors, the National Court, or the Supreme Court towards the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the full conformity with European law of the amnesty law is nothing but disobedience. The meaning of it all is clear: President Puigdemont's return to Catalonia is an humiliation for the entire political, media, police, and judicial state apparatus, especially the judicial one, which turned the prosecution of hundreds of Catalans into a reason to live with the rojigualda flag hanging on the balcony, and a merit for advancement. And, therefore, they will prolong the punishment as much as they can, because exiles and disqualifications prevent a strategic reorganization of the independence movement, which, however much it is here and no longer leaves, has not only failed to find new forms of widely accepted expression or new leaderships, but has also revealed the worst face of disorientation and division.The Spanish obstructionist impulse, which refers, therefore, to its essences, also has a tactical component which is the countdown waiting for the fall (and who knows if prosecution) of Pedro Sánchez, which would place the mechanisms of the executive and part of the legislative in the same hands as the judicial.

The first word of the day must be for Josep Vallverdú, who died yesterday at 103 years old.History will speak of the Lleida writer as a celebrated author of children's and young adult novels, with Rovelló at the peak of popularity. But Vallverdú is much more than that: there are more than 200 books in Catalan written amidst prohibitions, those of a life that took place in large part between two dictatorships, that of Primo de Rivera and that of Franco, a civil war and a post-war period. Vallverdú, from the same group as Joaquim Carbó, Sebastià Sorribas, or Emili Teixidor, is one of those writers who saved our words, and for that he deserves our gratitude. From Vallverdú, I want to share with you today some wise words spoken in an interview, talking about what was to remain in the last years of life. He said: “Only affections and hopes should remain in the closet, and the stronger the affections, the closer the hopes will be to becoming a reality.” May he rest in peace, Josep Vallverdú.Meanwhile, the judicial landscape is darkening for former Spanish president Zapatero and, by extension, for the current president Sánchez, who has always supported him, because although it has not been clarified who Zapatero influenced to rescue an airline with 53 million of public money for the pandemic, what seems proven is that the company paid money, a percentage of which ended up in Zapatero's pocket, and he denied having anything to do with it. For the moment, La Moncloa continues to trust Zapatero, but in view of what is known, that trust hangs by a thread.And today the Parliament held the last control session of the Government before the holidays. President Illa has been heard to say that he has gone from “no amnesty nor anything like that” to applauding the ECJ and asking that Spanish justice comply with the law. In fact, Puigdemont, Comín and Puig have denounced Spain before the European Commission for disregarding the ECJ.But the most interesting thing was when the spokesperson for Junts, Mònica Sales, asked the president what he plans to do about the shameful state investments in Catalonia, which last year were 8.6%. And Illa's response began by acknowledging the problem.

Today, to start, we have a government crisis. The new Minister of Social Rights is called Raúl Moreno, until now general secretary of the department. He replaces Mònica Martínez Bravo, who lived in Madrid and worked in Catalonia, and who requested relief from President Illa. At the handover ceremony, Illa remarked that it was a change of minister but not of policies. As Aleix Moldes explains today, this will not be the last government reshuffle where the Minister of Health, Olga Pané, currently on leave due to a fractured fibula, will not finish the term, nor will super-minister Sílvia Paneque, who will be sent back to her city, Girona, to try to regain the mayorship for the socialists. It is worth noting that Girona is a state-level mayoralty, because the relationship with the Spanish royal family will not be fully normalized in Catalonia until the awards named after the Crown heiress, the Princess of Girona, can be held in the city.It is clear that, due to a government crisis, that of the United Kingdom, which yesterday premiered a prime minister, the Labourite Andy Burnham, who in a speech without a lectern or teleprompter pledged to "make politics work, and work better", promised a new political model and a new economic model, to reindustrialize the United Kingdom. Burnham went straight to the point: the cost of living must be reduced, homelessness must be ended (he went to prepare breakfasts at a shelter for homeless people in London), in short, to get the United Kingdom out of a crisis that we also know here, but which there has the specificity of Brexit. It has been a bad deal: think that since the United Kingdom left the European Union (now, in June, it was 10 years ago) they have had seven prime ministers, and Burnham, specifically, is the fourth prime minister of Charles III in less than 4 years. Charles III succeeded his mother in September 2022, now four years ago, and began his reign with Liz Truss (who only lasted 45 days), Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, and now Andy Burnham. The fourth in less than four years is a clear sign of political instability derived from national disorientation, inflation, stagnant wages, lack of affordable housing, or the deterioration of public services.There are no perfect countries, they all carry a backpack or another; what do I have to tell you about Catalonia that you don't know. Today the day began with train traffic interrupted between Lleida and La Plana-Picamoixons due to a cable theft, as reported by Adif. An incident that happens every two by three, and which speaks, above all, of the abandonment in which Spain has kept its railway network in Catalonia for decades.In the last few hours, the Football World Cup has given the idea of Spain the possibility to look in the mirror and like itself, to make the speech of "When Spain plays, we all play", of the inclusive nation. This is the pleasant part of the Spanish message these days. But the nationalist discourse soon appeared, consisting of saying that it was enough to go around the world with complexes and that young people went out into the street without complexes. Let this comment from the newspaper this comment from the newspaper La Razón.Come on, cover yourselves a little. The idea of a unified and Castilian Spain has never had complexes (with a slight exception, a tactical withdrawal at the beginning of the Transition due to an apparent bad conscience due to the association between Spain and Francoism). For the rest, Spain goes its own way, with its language, investments, and blocking of any legal recognition of its plurinationality. And, on the other hand, let's understand each other: they present it as a success of the idea of Spain that people go out to celebrate the successes of the only team, when it is the only possible team, the "normal" one, which is normal because it is mandatory for athletes under penalty of losing their federative license to play. The only uninhibited thing is the nerve they have.

Spain is once again world champion of football. Here are some fundamental ideas about this second title.I said everywhere that Spain was the favorite against Argentina, because the Spanish team has better players who do what they have to do very well and interpret it with intelligence at every moment. If France in the semifinals and Argentina in the final have seemed like minor teams it is because Spain has subjected them with authority. Argentina, on the other hand, has lived each match with a religious tachycardia, doing its homework at the last minute, all hanging by a thread over the abyss, where God, Maradona, the Falklands and Messi are mixed. Messi alone (and even less so at 39 years old) cannot lift a national team that yesterday only shot at goal once in 120 minutes and could not make three consecutive passes. This is due to Spain's great defensive work, which has only conceded one goal in the entire championship, where Pau Cubarsí has graduated in this World Cup, as has Dani Olmo, with a Lamine who scares opponents but who has not fully exploded yet in this World Cup (although winning one at 19 years old is very similar to exploding). He has already won a European Championship and a World Cup with Spain. Now it's time for the Champions League with Barça. Show Time: Lamentable halftime show, with wasted talents like that of director Gustavo Dudamel, with appearances that caused suffering, like those of Madonna, Ronaldinho and Ronaldo. The World Cup song, performed by Shakira, has not hooked at all. A 27-minute break at halftime is not football. Infantino rules, Donald Trump's pawn.International politics: Donald Trump wanted to stay with the players when they were going to lift the championship trophy, because it is known that he always wins. In the box he was surrounded by leaders of countries he has insulted and belittled, such as Canada, Mexico and Spain. Spanish politics: National football teams are the ultimate expression of politics, and that's why the Spanish royal family and Pedro Sánchez and three ministers were there yesterday. With the World Cup victory, Pedro Sánchez ensures he reaches September with some oxygen. Yesterday, a Valencian socialist tweeted provocatively: "The Roja won. We reds won," written on July 19th, 90 years after the start of the Civil War. The World Cup will not ease the judges' pressure on cases affecting Sánchez, but people will be busy with other things until September. And in the autumn is when he can announce the call for elections.Catalonia: Thousands of people took to the streets of our country yesterday to celebrate Spain's victory.Horns and firecrackers were heard. The fact that Spain prohibits Catalonia's participation in international competitions is a very strong blow to the normalization of Catalan popular identity, especially for young people, for whom Spain is what is normal. Imagine the opportunity cost of Lamine Yamal not being able to wear the Catalonia jersey. And yet, national team and Spanish sentiment are not direct communicating vessels. Tell me, if not, how many Catalans do you not know who supported Spain because of the Barça players or, simply, because it is the closest national team.We will eat the red [team] for a few days. A red [team] that cannot be explained without Barça (not as much as in 2010, it's true), but where the style taught at La Masia is that of the national team and where eight Catalan players have gone to offer new glories to Spain. And the offering has been pure gold. Good morning.

After the European justice's approval of the amnesty, a couple of immediate questions remain, the first: who remains to be amnestied?Here we explain it: the CDRs (indicted in the National Court for terrorism) and those pending before the Court of Auditors, accused by the Prosecutor's Office and by Societat Civil Catalana, which is claiming five million from them, but then there is a small trickle of cases distributed in various parts of the country. And the other: when can Puigdemont return? Núria Orriols, our delegate in Madrid, reviews all possible scenarios, which include the fact that the Supreme Court has no deadline to rush its decision and could even ask Europe again if embezzlement is amnestible, even though the Constitutional Court had already said that the amnesty was constitutional. The only certainty is that the Constitutional Court will rule in the autumn precisely on whether embezzlement is amnestible. And this is where the political calendar comes in: in Madrid, it is rumored that it will be in the autumn when Pedro Sánchez can announce the call for elections. If Puigdemont arrives before or during the campaign, the consequences are diverse: it helps Junts, it campaigns for PP and VOX against the PSOE in Spain and it helps the PSC in Catalonia. Yesterday Aznar said that "the seditious aggression" could not go unpunished. And it is that in the amnesty two grievances converge according to PP, the patriotic grievance (Spain is not voted for) and that of power, and here is where the two public enemies number one are found: Puigdemont and Sánchez. They want them both in prison. The PSOE governs having lost, thanks to the amnesty agreed with Junts. Aznar, incidentally, recalled that the unity of Spain is basic for the European Union, as is that of Italy or Germany or any other country. Aznar and a good part of Spanish politics put unity first and then democracy, with the mental reservation that without unity there is no democracy. From this tangle between aggravated flag and the power they do not have, there is the reason for the refusal of the Spanish judicial leadership to apply a law that has been approved for more than two years, which is Constitutional and in accordance with Community legislation. Remember the 2006 Statute. We've been the same for 20 years. And the problem is that in these 20 years the country has changed a lot, the world has changed a lot, needs have multiplied and we don't have all the tools. And the parties in Catalonia are too divided to overcome the enormity of the challenge that the future of the country represents. A certain unity of action is a necessary condition.Good morning.

Great news: the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has largely endorsed the amnesty law.It found it to be in accordance with EU law, because it considered that the amnesty is not contrary to the financial interests of the European Union, nor is it contrary to the directive on terrorism (the crime for which some CDRs had been prosecuted). It goes further, emphatically: the CJEU states that the amnesty does not harm equal treatment, in the sense that it was a law only intended to favor some, but rather it was approved "in a real context of political and social reconciliation" and therefore does not constitute a "self-amnesty". With this ruling, the Court of Auditors should file its cases, and the National Court, too. And the Supreme Court, of course. But at the moment I'm speaking to you, the arrest warrant for Carles Puigdemont or the disqualification of Oriol Junqueras is still in place. And it is quite likely that they will wait until autumn to lift them, which is when the Constitutional Court will issue a ruling on the Supreme Court's refusal to apply the amnesty. To put it this way, Carles Puigdemont is one step closer to returning to Catalonia, and now it seems it is only a matter of a few months.The CJEU ruling is great news, but that the amnesty is not fully applied is a disgrace that can only be explained by the "a por ellos!". It is important to remember where we come from: the TS prosecuted the political prisoners for rebellion, a crime that should have required armed violence, it condemned for sedition, which would also have required violence, and now it refuses to apply the amnesty for embezzlement, for which there has also been none. It is a deployment of creative, patriotic justice.The president Illa made a statement in Catalan, Spanish, and English :“I appear before all of you to express my satisfaction and that of the Government of Catalonia for the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union. An explicit ruling, which endorses Organic Law 1/2024 on amnesty for the institutional, political, and social normalization of Catalonia. The highest instance of European justice has spoken clearly: the law complies with European law. Europe says 'yes' to amnesty, Catalonia says 'yes' to the future. The decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union is very good news for Catalonia, for Spain, and for democracy. There is no turning back. The amnesty law is part, with all its consequences, of our legal framework, and therefore, its application is mandatory.”

The dish of the day is Spain, finalists of the World Cup, but, before that we cannot lose sight of the fact that Pedro Sánchez's brother has been sentenced to 9 years of disqualification for malfeasance, for having created and awarded him a job at the Badajoz Provincial Council out of hand, which, according to the ruling, was neither urgent nor necessary. But the ruling itself dismisses that there had been influence peddling, that is to say, that no one called to pressure for this job to be created. In other words, it is proven that David Sánchez was nepotized. It is ugly in all cases, but more so in the case of a brother of the president of the government. Another thing is that such a nepotism would reach the courts if we were not talking about the brother of the president of the government and, much less, that the sentence would be 9 years of disqualification. And for this reason, the socialist government, as Minister Puente says, considers that the purpose of the sentence is to overthrow the Spanish government “given the inability to do so at the ballot box”, an assessment with which we can agree, but which means that the executive power considers that the judicial power is malfeasance for political reasons. La Moncloa did not speak of lawfare, but it did speak of a “political cause,” from which, therefore, a political conviction would follow. Sounds like a trial, doesn't it, PSOE? The PSOE continues to live the nightmare of feeling excluded by the system as a state party. At the same time, the system is teaching the PSOE the right way: if you don't make deals with Catalan and Basque independentists, your problems will end. But, as we were saying, the news of the day is that Spain is already in the World Cup final.In all fairness, the championship Spain has played has not been spectacular, but it has been very solid. Consider that they reach the final having conceded one goal in the entire tournament. And yesterday it eliminated the powerful and feared France with solid football, always well positioned on the field, reducing players like Mbappé or Dembélé to impotence. As Martí Molina titles it, yesterday's match was a football lesson from an incredible generation, with special mention to three Catalans: Cubarsí, Olmo, and Lamine Yamal. Tonight, at 9, the other semifinal will be played, England-Argentina (since the Falklands War and Maradona's goals in '86, it's more than just a match), but the strength Spain is showing makes it the favorite, in my opinion, whether the English or Messi's team advance.The World Cup has a major political derivative, because it has become the great machine for feeding identities. At a time when states have shrunk in the face of the disruptive power of billionaire technology companies and can barely ensure the social contract, the World Cup ensures the emotional contract. And the states play it to the fullest. Look at this video, and tell me if you have ever seen the always grumpy Felipe de Borbón so exultant: he and his family, with the shirt with their names printed on it, celebrating yesterday night's 2-0, in a double exercise of showing what behavior is expected of a Spaniard on occasions like this and that his harmony with the joy of his subjects is total. And on Sunday, to the box with Donald Trump.In short, a selection is a flag and a name, a cry. That is why Spain prohibits by law the participation of selections like the Catalan one in international competitions (even though the Catalan Football Federation is older than the Spanish one (1900 the Catalan, 1913 the Spanish) and punishes athletes who refuse to go. By the way, the tweet from the Royal House encourages the selection to win the final with a phrase that will sound familiar to them: "!A por ello!". They don't get out of there.Good morning.

July 14th, the French national holiday, to commemorate the end of the Bourbon monarchy and the establishment of a republic driven by easily embraceable universal values, such as liberty, fraternity, and equality. It was only fitting that in "Casablanca," the "Marseillaise" competed against a Nazi anthem to become the anthem of freedom sung with pride and courage by a group of Free Frenchmen, in one of the most moving scenes in cinema history. It would all be very beautiful if it weren't for the fact that in the name of this fraternal republic, France has pursued languages like Catalan to the point of self-loathing and extinction.It is similar to what the Spanish state has done in Catalonia. What it has done, and what it continues to do:The Supreme Court has ruled that Spanish cannot be excluded from the signage of public educational centers in Catalonia. He says that “Castilian is the official language throughout Spain, which means it is a language that cannot be excluded from communications between public authorities and citizens".As Sebastià Alzamora titles his article today, “if you are Spanish, speak Spanish”, which is what my parents had to hear in their youth during the dictatorship. It's the same old song, when it suits us we are Spanish (especially when it comes to paying taxes that go away and don't serve the well-being of Catalans) and when it suits us (always) our language is not Spanish enough. We know all this by heart and, even so, meanwhile, President Illa went to Madrid yesterday and signed Catalonia's loyalty to the State. A loyalty that, as we see, is not reciprocal and that, by dint of repetition, led to the logical conclusion of half the country wanting independence in 2017. Loyalty is only possible from equality. And what exists between Spain and Catalonia or between Spanish and Catalan is a Catalan subordination to the supremacy of the State over the province. The rest are rhetorical sleight of hand that no one can believe anymore. Or kind, almost pleading, ways of telling the Spanish that the current government of the Generalitat will not organize any October 1st for them. 

Tomorrow at 9 the Spain-France game will be played, and banal Spanish nationalism is infiltrating everywhere, including the mobile screens of Movistar customers, which, instead of saying “Movistar” says “with the selection”, regardless of whether the client completely ignores it of the World Cup or the selection bothers them. The performance that states and companies derive from their sports selections explains to what extent sport is also politics and identity is also business. A cruel paradox for so many Catalans who have at some point shouted "neither Spain, nor France, Catalan Countries", and it turns out that tomorrow, it will be one or the other. About M. Rajoy and his comment that France plays without French saying that: first, following their reasoning, Spain plays without Spaniards, and second, that Republican France has felt very offended, but it would be good for them to consider whether the indignation they feel about the racist comment is consistent with the absence of racism in everyday life. Contrary to what this article says, it is not that people like Rajoy bring the World Cup into the realm of identity, but rather that the entire World Cup is a competition of identities (one only needs to look at the anthems, the flags, and the heads of state in the stands). Another matter is what is understood by national identity in each country. But this week there is another important appointment, which is on Thursday, the day on which the Court of Justice of the European Union must rule on the amnesty, specifically on whether the crime of embezzlement is amnestible or not. It is another episode in this judicial quarrel that the Spanish judiciary's refusal to apply the amnesty law as approved by the legislative power more than two years ago, in May 2024, has become. Remember that, to prevent its application, the Supreme Court ruled that, since the referendum was paid for with public money, the leaders of the Process personally enriched themselves because they saved themselves from putting money from their own pockets, like someone who pays for their daughter's wedding with public money (the example is from the Supreme Court). Well, on Thursday the CJEU will rule, but even if the ruling says that the amnesty is in accordance with European law, it will not be automatically applied, but rather then, the Constitutional Court must decide whether the Supreme Court's interpretation is correct or not, presumably it will say no, but this ruling will not arrive until the autumn, practically when Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Lluís Puig will have been in exile for 9 years.