You already know that today is a day we started at the very top, first thing in the morning with the tick-tock of a countdown so that tomorrow the housing decree-law can be approved. It is a tense countdown, with about 500 people camping in Madrid, in about eighty tents, in a repetition of what was the 15-M, which have appeared after the emotional impact of the eviction of the 87-year-old lady from Madrid, Maricarmen. The majority of the campers are young, and the protests in Barcelona have blocked some streets early in the morning, and will continue until the evening, when Pedro Sánchez will come to present some awards at the Palace of Congresses located at the top of the Diagonal and will be met with a citizen protest called by the Tenants' Union.That is why yesterday Pedro Sánchez wanted to calm the nerves with an announcement that aimed to be empathetic:Pedro Sánchez: “Maricarmen, I have a message for you. The government is working against the clock to bring the royal decree-law on housing on Tuesday. And I ask the parliamentary groups that we make one last effort so that it is validated in the national Parliament, for Maricarmen and for the millions of Spaniards who suffer from the housing crisis. Because it is not a question of ideology, it is a question of humanity”.The problem, President Sánchez, is that it is indeed a question of ideology. If it were only a matter of humanity, it would already be solved. The problem for Sánchez is that he needs the votes of parties like Podemos and Sumar, who see landlords as a whole, and he needs the votes of Junts and the PNV, who want protection for small landlords. Consider that, in Catalonia, approximately 90% of rental housing is in the hands of small holders. A small holder is considered to be any individual or company that owns fewer than 5 properties in stressed areas.Yesterday, a very direct source from Junts told me that they were not optimistic. “If it depended on the PSOE and us it would be easy, but with Sumar/Podem and their ideological entrenchment everything becomes complicated”. For Junts, the red line for not agreeing to the decree is that vulture funds and large real estate companies are lumped together with small property owners, and that the cost of suspending evictions is passed on to the small property owner. The idea is that “what the vulnerable tenant cannot pay the landlord, the State should pay”.Well, based on what has emerged this morning, among the measures that the Spanish government has confirmed to ARA are being negotiated are: protecting against evictions (the fine print remains to be seen), prohibiting speculative housing purchases by vulture funds (this measure could gather consensus from both the left and Junts and the PNB), stabilizing rental contracts (this is one of the main demands of the Tenants' Union, which wants indefinite contracts, but Junts and the PNB do not view this measure favorably), and tax bonuses for tenants (Junts requested this, but it remains to be seen if Sumar and Podemos, who were reluctant, will also accept it).In short, we have protests underway, including a 15-M style encampment and a decree law that is being negotiated with urgency, to stop the blow. But we have lost fifteen years. Because it is not that we are in the same place as the 15-M, but that we are worse off, because 15 years have passed and there is a lack of affordable housing. When it turns out that housing is personal and social stability and means birth rates, the failure is collective.I do not know if the decree will have the votes, it remains to be seen whether it will lean more to the right or to the left, and it must find a balance that will require everyone to compromise. But it will be a stopgap, a temporary solution. That is the tragedy. Now, it is clear that we are at a political and social turning point, because there are people of all ages who have no idea where they will live when their contract expires. Good morning.

It is deeply embarrassing that the eviction of this elderly lady in Madrid was necessary for everyone to suddenly rush to action. Firstly, because it is not serious, and secondly, for those who claim they have been warning us for a long time, because an anti-eviction decree will soften the blow, but it is not the solution to the housing problem.

Yesterday, an 87-year-old woman was evicted from her home because she could not afford the rent increase from 500 to 2,750 euros. Since this eviction happened in Madrid, where the loudspeaker resonates louder –also in Catalonia–, this image of this lady, whose name is Maricarmen, has become the symbol of the wreckage that the real estate market is causing in the lives of thousands of people.Between 7,000 and 8,000 evictions take place in Catalonia every year. The vast majority are due to non-payment of rent (approximately 75%). Everything is legal: there is a law, which the judge applies, with the protection of the police. It is legal, but it is neither ethical nor decent. And this is when all eyes turn towards politics, so that it may correct what we call the abuses of the market. But for decades now, the market has been winning over politics. Here and everywhere else. And there is no need for a dramatic eviction like yesterday's to verify its effects: how many young people cannot emancipate themselves from their parents' house because they cannot afford rent –with the consequent effect that this has on their future expectations, of living as a couple, of starting their own family, of having children–? How many families have had to leave their lifelong neighborhood or city because they cannot afford to live there?The remote and immediate causes of the housing crisis have been long debated. You hear from developers and they point out that there are few building plots, you hear from the real estate sector and it says there is a lack of supply, you hear everyone saying that public housing has not been built, you hear from small landlords and they say they do not want to be treated like large holders, like vulture funds and speculators, and having to carry out, out of their own pockets, the housing policies that governments have not implemented. The problem is that the real estate market is eating away at everyone's life. Do you remember the case of that teacher from Mallorca who worked in Ibiza and every day took a plane to go teach classes in Ibiza because it was more cost-effective to take a plane than to pay rent? Well, that's it.The effects on collective morale, the loss of trust in democracy, and the increase in lack of solidarity are enormous. Here and everywhere. If there is a globalized problem, it is housing. In this context, yesterday Pedro Sánchez took a photo with the mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, which he finished with the following phrase: “The powerful fear us”. It is the type of statement that should be made with actions rather than words, especially when the facts contradict you. A bad day to say “The powerful fear us”, because it is not true. The image of Maricarmen from yesterday is one of great social violence.Yes, politics has its codes, and international alliances are highly sought after, the photo with Mamdani is sought after, but the housing problem surpasses them all, even the political leaders with the greatest social conscience.Good morning

As we already told you yesterday, the Constitutional Court endorsed the amnesty law. Although the magistrates' deliberations are secret, it has been an open secret (as almost always happens in the Spanish judicial corridors): the progressive majority opposed the proposal of a conservative magistrate who was against it, and now the forecast is that in the week of October 5th, the TC will end up giving the green light to the amnesty. And it would be then that Judge Llarena would have to lift the arrest warrant for Puigdemont, Comín and Puig, and the Supreme Court would have to definitively archive all the cases related to the 'Procés' that it still keeps open. A very bitter medicine for an application of justice that is arrogant and proud.When would Puigdemont return?The ARA delegate in Madrid, Núria Orriols, specifies that the president in exile could choose between three moments to return: once the Constitutional Court has decided, after the withdrawal of Llarena's arrest warrant, or once the case has been definitively shelved. You can be sure that after spending 9 years in Belgium, it won't make a difference to Puigdemont if it takes a day or a month more, and that he will not return until it is clear that they will not arrest him. Another thing is that, once here, some random Peinado-style judge might find a traffic fine he didn't pay or revive the Aigües de Girona case. But beyond the criminal situation, there is the political one. And Puigdemont must decide what he wants to do: whether to go to Parliament to act as leader of the opposition, whether to run again or not, and in turn, Junts will have to see if it is capable of covering, from what was once Convergència, with its connection to big business, the entire independence movement beyond the size of its pocket.Meanwhile, yesterday the Mossos superintendent, Carles Hernández, head of the General Information Commissariat, the police branch on which that unfortunate infiltration of two agents into a teachers' assembly depended, appeared before the Parliament of Catalonia.

To no one's surprise, Begoña Gómez, the wife of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been sent to trial for embezzlement and influence peddling.It is the news of the day and, at the same time, it was already taken for granted. You know what happens when the episodes of a series are coming to an end, when the writers drown the protagonists with an accumulation of problems? Well, here we are: the Spanish legislature has months left, and Aznar's watchword of “Whoever can do, let them do” is working at full speed. Note that the judge who is sending Sánchez's wife to trial, the judge Juan Carlos Peinado, is retiring next week. He is leaving through the front door, with a big game trophy. Because one thing is that Begoña Gómez has to answer to the law like everyone else, but not everyone is answering to the law in the same way. Carlos Mazón, with hundreds of deaths on his conscience, continues to collect a deputy's salary. It would be touching if it were not pathetic to hear yesterday on TVE a minister of Sánchez, Óscar López, acknowledging that at the beginning of the 'Procés', he did not understand what was happening, and that now he understands everything.

President Puigdemont has broken his silence to the media this weekend and has spoken about his return to Catalonia. It has been more than a year since he granted an interview to any Catalan media outlet and it remains the same, because he has granted the interview to the English newspaper The Sunday Times. The headline they have given it already explains that, for the international public, the Procés and its leaders seem so far away that it does not even put his name in the headline: “An exiled Catalan separatist has no regrets and considers returning to Spain”. And as a subtitle: “Carles Puigdemont has spent nine turbulent years away from home, during which he has suffered an arrest and lost his parents without having the opportunity to see them. Now he wants to «breathe reality» again”. The president in exile explained it this way, in this interview granted at his home, in Waterloo, a few kilometers from Brussels:Puigdemont: “The current Catalonia is not the same as it was when I left the country. During all this time I have tried to be in contact with my team and with the people, to understand exactly what is happening in Catalonia. But I know that it is not the same as smelling, touching, feeling, being among the people. This is my first intention when I arrive: to immerse myself in reality. To touch again. To feel, to smell the country”. When Puigdemont speaks publicly in this tone, it is clear that he now sees it closer than ever. And following the thread of his response, it is by feeling, touching, and smelling the country that he must decide if he wants to act as leader of the opposition to Illa and, above all, if he wants to run for the presidency again, or if Catalonia and the memory he has left behind have changed so much that he will not be able to turn the polls around.Meanwhile, this weekend Sánchez, Feijóo and Abascal have been through Catalonia. Sánchez to say that now everything is going much better thanks to Salvador Illa, Abascal to tell us that the problem is Islam and Feijóo to consider that we are material for a psychiatrist. Feijóo: “And I do not want a Catalonia trapped in a permanent loop, sitting on a psychiatrist's couch asking itself what it is. No, I do want to turn the page. I want you Catalans not to be the ones who pay the most taxes in Spain and the ones who receive the worst services. You cannot have a Rodalies that is sometimes scary and other times shameful. You cannot have the worst education in Spain, along with Ceuta and Melilla. You cannot have the highest crime rates. And you cannot accept that your industry is dismantled, whether it be called Seat, Ascó or Valdebeos. We will maintain the Catalan industry above all else”.Look, Mr. Feijóo, part of our financial problems come from the premeditated asphyxiation of which your party is one of the historic co-responsible parties. Asphyxiation that extends to the trains, for example: 34 years after the first AVE (Madrid-Seville), the Mediterranean corridor is still unfinished. And for you to suggest that we have a mental disorder that needs a psychiatrist is a very crude way of belittling the history of Catalonia and Spain. It’s a good thing you came to ask for our vote.Good morning.

Many things have happened this week, and the most important one (even if it seems so) is not that Florentino Pérez is going to Ceuta today to make a resounding profession of the Spanish identity of Madrid and Ceuta. A kind of “how could I not love you”, if I am Madrid.But today the news in Ceuta is that the thousands of people who were living in poor conditions on the beaches have finally been moved to the city's port, where a decent camp awaits them. It has taken a month and nineteen days for the president of Ceuta, the Spanish government, the judiciary, and the police unions to agree and stop preventing it. A shameful management. By the way, very far but very close to Ceuta, in New York, the governments of Morocco and Israel have signed the agreement by which Rabat and Tel Aviv elevate their diplomatic relations to the embassy level, and they will soon exchange ambassadors. Morocco is not only the neighbor that holds the key to African immigration to the EU, but it also reinforces its long-standing alliance with the United States, now with Trump.But, of course, in a week where the topic of debate has been whether AI could kill us all before 2030, any other news seems small. In reality, everything matters. If we talk about ourselves, it has begun, as you know, the trial of the four national police officers accused of torture and injuries resulting in the loss of an organ, when they fired the rubber bullet that left Roger Español blind in one eye on October 1st. The day before yesterday they said that the operation was “absolutely perfect”, and yesterday the police officers declared, very remorseful, as proof of the aggression with which they were received, that people were shouting “Españolazos” at them, that they were only defending themselves, that they gave warnings and that they were not going to cause harm but to deter. And they said this with Roger Español present there.Police: “The very aggressive manner in which the public gathered there was throwing objects, mm, stones, cobblestones, bottles, from... from the facades they were also throwing them, and their physical integrity was at serious risk. This is more than enough, more than enough, to be able to use the riot control equipment that the intervention units are legally equipped with, which are not harmful, mm, they are not... They are deterrent. They are not harmful, they are deterrent.”But the moment that sums it all up is this one. The judge calls a Catalan interpreter, who gets so nervous that she cannot interpret anything.

The President of the Generalitat traveled to Extremadura yesterday to celebrate the National Day there. He said he was going there to present and share an “open, inclusive, and solidary Catalonia.” I wonder when it stopped being open, inclusive, and solidary. Or does open, inclusive, and solidary mean Spanish? Who is the President saying all this to? To Madrid? To the King? To the Ibex-35? To PSOE voters in Catalonia, so they don’t vote for Abascal? Because Illa will leave, and the Extremaduran government will continue to instill the same old prejudices in Extremadurans. Notice that yesterday, to argue that she is against the new financing system, the Extremaduran President, María Guardiola, said that she wants to prevent a new wave of Extremaduran migration from repeating itself. I wonder what 43 years of autonomy has done for Extremadura if we are still like this.As you know, on these occasions the word that is repeated the most is solidarity. And after decades of seeing the fiscal effort we make in Catalonia, one wonders where the solidarity with the Catalans is, among whom there are thousands and thousands of children and grandchildren of Extremadurans, who have to take Rodalies every day, or the AP-7, or have to queue on healthcare waiting lists. I insist, good neighborliness is always good, but it must be based on respect and truth.And speaking of defending the Catalans for the services they pay the State for but which the State does not provide them, let's talk about Rodalies. The cable theft at the Estació de França, in Barcelona, caused delays on the R2 south line. Man, when they can already steal the cable at the Estació de França itself, it's not that you have your guard down, but rather that you have no guard at all, and that goes for Adif. It is the sixth theft in 10 days. And since a piece of news is better understood alongside another:A young woman creates a system to alert about Renfe and Adif delays. It is a system invented by Marina Castellano, a 24-year-old engineer from Badalona, which warns of Rodalies incidents up to three-quarters of an hour before the official channels. Nothing more needs to be said, right? It is a system that detects, verifies, and processes thousands of messages on social networks about breakdowns. Castellano is a student of mathematical engineering in data science at Pompeu Fabra University, and when she had to approach her final degree project (TFG), the idea of improving Rodalies information immediately came to mind "to make life a little easier for users". If a student can do it, why don't those who are paid to do it do it? Because they don't think about the people, that is, about the service they provide.

The first words today must be to congratulate Sebastià Alzamora.Yesterday, the Spanish Ministry of Culture announced that it was awarding him the 2026 National Poetry Prize for the book “Sala Augusta seguit de Llengua materna”, published by Proa. In a Hispanic culture where only that which is Castilian is authentically Spanish, the fact that the ministry has distinguished an author in Catalan is an oasis of recognition and coexistence that we celebrate. This, plus what Alzamora said, that “the prize was received by a book written in Catalan in Mallorca, where the Spanish right and far-right are working to destroy the Catalan language in all spheres”. Be that as it may, many congratulations, Sebastià.For the rest, we are in the same place. With a change that seems minor, but might not be. Judge Llarena blew hot and cold yesterday regarding the application of the amnesty.

Yesterday, President Illa gave himself a bath of solemnity to highlight that he has reached the midpoint of his term with a budget for next year, a project to improve the financing system, and the country with the independence movement faded. And all of this is no small thing, considering he only has 42 deputies. Stability of today versus the independence paralysis of ten years, would be the message.Illa gave a speech, therefore, there were no uncomfortable questions nor did he make any self-criticism for the management problems, which was precisely what he boasted about in the election campaign two years ago. On the contrary, the idea was to convey an inspiring and visionary message (the conference was titled 'The future is here') on a quiet night.And within this presidential framework, the president made the announcement intended to make headlines: Illa will promote a great educational pact.“As president of the Generalitat, I am calling from this moment on the whole country to a debate on education, a debate to take action, a debate that will lead us to reach a new great country consensus for education. I will soon initiate a round of meetings with the political forces with parliamentary representation, I will ask the Education Council of Catalonia to be the instrument for this debate, from the knowledge and pluralism it represents. I commit to ensuring that the debate includes, now yes, reaching the 6% of public investment as established by the education law approved by the Parliament of Catalonia in the year 2009. A 6% of the resources of the country's gross domestic product destined for education. We must take Catalan education to excellence”.This has been their way of admitting that, after two years of management, this school year has begun with a teachers' strike and the conflict is far from over. We are in favor of this pact. Not today. Days ago, as you will surely remember if you follow us regularly. 15 days ago, on September 1st, I said here: “A country pact for education. Now or never, because what is at stake is the country itself”. And a week ago I stated that “reaching a great country agreement for education, thinking of the students and the future of the country, is increasingly necessary”. Therefore, it would be good news if this pact turned out well. It could turn out well, because we have the talent and it seems (Illa announced that it would move towards 6% of public investment in Education) that we will have the means. But the greatness and generosity of the Government, the opposition, the unions, the teachers, and the families are needed. I insist, hopefully this pact can be developed, because the future of the country depends on it, but the Government must admit that it has not been at all inspired when it comes to setting the course.Beyond the specific announcements, beyond what is said, there is what is meant. And yesterday, the president wanted to send a message of self-esteem, even of the joy of living, as when he said that “Catalonia is a wonderful place, where wonderful things happen”. I also believe it, but when a politician wants to generate enthusiasm in Catalonia, he must keep in mind that this is a country for which the Spanish Constitution and the Statute of Catalonia, and the financing, are too small, very small, and that the common regime does not inspire. And that this morning there are people looking at Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, who have signed a document more declarative than effective to form a common front and pressure London for independence and thinks that what is most exciting is giving a state to the nation.

On the way back from the Diada celebration in Barcelona, I heard that the protesters were making the same demographic summary: there were people over 50 and under 25. And the presence of young people is interpreted as a green shoot that dispels the idea that the end of the 2017 process created a cut that had no tail behind it.It helps that the failure of the 2017 process objective, plus the subsequent state repression and the division of the parties, apart from leaving the Government in the hands of the PSC, has shifted the center of political debate in Catalonia, so that problems such as the lack of housing, insecurity on the streets, the poor service of the suburban trains (Rodalies), strikes in Education, Healthcare or the farmers' protests, the use of the language... all this has ended up filling the voting intention polls for Aliança Catalana, which mimics the messages of the entire European far-right: there are groups impossible to incorporate into Catalan identity, who furthermore commit crimes and take the aid, with the approval of traditional parties, some corrupt and all clinging to their seats. And so, the lifelong debate, the Catalonia-Spain one, is replaced by the local version of a darker and more authoritarian global agenda. Yes, we have a debate about the regional financing system or the application of the amnesty, but the protest vote, of radical change, is shifting, polls say, towards Aliança Catalana, hand in hand with the identity vote in a radical sense (particularly Islamophobic, as we heard in the party's speeches at the Diada) and the punishment vote against the institutions.Where do these votes come from? Many of them come from the sovereignty movement, especially from Junts, and now Vox intends to attract the most Spanish-leaning disenchanted vote from the PSC, also taking advantage of the fact that it has now reached the middle of the legislative term with serious management problems in all the departments most important in terms of budget and impact on the lives of the majority. At the end of the week, Santiago Abascal will come to Catalonia to open the political season, taking advantage of the fact that Aliança Catalana has placed at the center the debate on the favorite topic they share, which is immigration. For Vox, the enemies are immigration and Sánchez, who does not defend Spain's borders. And for Aliança Catalana, the enemies are immigration and the rest of the parties, which do not defend security, public services; that is to say, Catalan identity and Western identity.

An analysis like this fundamentally has one purpose, which is to help us all understand what kind of country we live in, or what kind of world we live in, and there is news today that helps a lot with that.For example: early this morning Donald Trump promised that if the Republican Party maintains the majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate in the November 3rd elections, he will pay “every adult American a dividend” of 5,000 dollars. Donald Trump: “If the Republicans win the United States House of Representatives and the Senate, both of them, thanks to our enormous strength and our economic success, I will pay a dividend of 5,000 dollars to every adult citizen of the United States of America”.He is so worried about the results that he already wants to buy the vote. And he wraps it up in the usual triumphalist rhetoric, assuring that we are doing so well, and speaking like a businessman who manages a company and not a country, and promising a dividend. It is so low that it is not worth dwelling on. And it is a good thing he is promising money and not threatening deportations if they do not vote for him, but it will all come. It is not that they have no shame, it is that they have a plan: to perpetuate themselves in power, make money and prevent being prosecuted, if necessary, by ending democracyAnother one: Sánchez has kept his promise to make public all the reports he received regarding the massive entry into Ceuta, with the intention of demonstrating that nobody saw it coming. Well, the warnings portray the Spanish government, since the CNI warned of calls for an assault on the fence and by sea, but without anticipating the magnitude. If the papers portray Sánchez, why publish them? Because they cling to a part of the truth: they did not receive any report. They received WhatsApps and calls. But there were indeed warnings. No matter how you look at it, the Spanish government's foresight was zero, and the management was slow, and therefore bad. And what does Sánchez offer? Catchy phrases for the enjoyment of TikTok, Instagram or X. Like this one:Pedro Sánchez: “Regarding the insults, my lord, you have called me an autocrat, a dictator, they even call me a dog. They call me a dog, yes, yes, they call me a dog. Look, I will tell you one thing, Mr. Abascal: unlike you, I may be a dog, but I have no master”.It has no owner, but dialectical creativity is not enough when there is a crisis like the one Morocco has created for Ceuta. All of this is a theater that does not hold up.Salvador Illa should take note of this. Yesterday Josep Lluís Trapero resigned, his great signing for the general direction of the Police, for the reasons we explained: Trapero is very much Trapero and he did not get along with Minister Parlon. And yesterday it became clear that the straw that broke the camel's back was the appointment of Sílvia Catà as the new head of the Mossos, to the point that Trapero resigned on the day the new head of the force was to be presented, historic news because she is the first woman who will lead the police. Anyway, these things happen in politics, but it has been another dent (and quite a visible one) in the bodywork of the Illa government. He has had to replace five officials in one month. It has just been two years since he arrived at the presidency, he is halfway through his term, he has a budget for next year, but he has problems in Education, Health, the Interior, with mobility, and the discourse that a Government was coming that would actually know how to manage (unlike the “chaos” with the pro-independence Governments) no longer holds up. This Government shows signs today of difficulty in solving problems, and the president should think that they do not go away with more or less fortunate phrases. And so we arrive at a new Diada, at a new National Day. Tomorrow will mark 50 years since the first one after the Francoist dictatorship. The one in 1976 was a tolerated Diada, because the civil governor of the time prohibited the celebration in Barcelona. It was a brave Diada, in which it was possible to use the term “National Day” without fear, and, above all, it brought everyone together. That unity is the message today. Today there is less courage, more calculation, more wounds from the Procés and an extreme right with an exclusionary vision of Catalan identity. What has happened to the Diada is what has happened to the world: too much fear and too little hope.Good morning.

The news broke early this morning: Josep Lluís Trapero has resigned as Director General of the Police. Trapero's decision came on a key day for the Mossos d'Esquadra, as a meeting of the police leadership had been called for this Wednesday morning at the Department of the Interior to announce who would be the new Chief Commissioner of the force, but Trapero's resignation has caused surprise among the high command of the Mossos and the Interior Department.Quick reminder: at the Interior Department there is a minister, who has a civilian political number two, who was now Trapero, and a uniformed, police number two, who until today was Miquel Esquius, who is retiring. I say this so that you are not confused, because Trapero had been the police chief (it was when he was promoted to major and was dismissed by the 155 in 2017) but now he was a political appointee by decision of Salvador Illa, who in the 2024 election campaign, like someone pulling an ace out of their sleeve, announced that Trapero would be his Director General of the Police.

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".