In an interview yesterday in La Vanguardia, the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo stated that Pedro Sánchez is delaying the application of the amnesty to Carles Puigdemont. It is not new. Before, Feijóo had already said that Sánchez has deceived Carles Puigdemont with the amnesty law.

Whenever we try to understand complex situations, we try to find a reason that justifies how someone acts, or why something happens a certain way. Lately, even experts in politics, particularly international politics, are completely baffled as to the reasons behind this particular figure: any reasonable prediction based on the rules we previously knew has been shattered. Some, even with immense effort, have lined up all the facts, like an Excel spreadsheet, and tried to find a common thread. In Trump's case, at this point, we have to accept that everyone who has tried has failed.

Commuter rail, education, healthcare, farming, fishing, the self-employed… Anyone might think I'm listing sectors with no connection to each other, but the reality is very different. Either they aren't functioning as they should, or they're on strike and mobilizing because they're fed up with the situation.

Why revisit the question of Catalan independence today? Because the debate on regional funding has resurfaced, once again, shrouded in language that expresses grievance against Catalonia, explicitly portraying it as a subordinate society, not fully involved in defining strategies in Spain. And because the recurring infrastructure crisis—commuter rail, the Mediterranean Corridor, decades of accumulated investment shortfalls, the strangulation of all public services—can no longer be presented as a series of technical issues. When these shortcomings are systematically repeated in the same region, the issue ceases to be administrative and becomes political.

1. I suspected the situation was serious. And I decided to document it. I wondered when Spain, Catalonia, and Barcelona started living with extended budgets. Spain is just getting by on the 2023 budget. Catalonia is also barely surviving on the 2023 budget. Barcelona, ​​for its part, is just scraping by with the budget approved in May 2024 thanks to a special procedure: a vote of confidence. The paralysis, therefore, is threefold and affects all areas. For three years now, so to speak, the planned structural spending—on healthcare, education, social services, and civil servants' salaries—has been maintained, but new programs and structural investments cannot be implemented. Extending the budget means ensuring that, administratively, the country doesn't grind to a halt, but neither does it improve in any way. It's a death sentence. Projects, infrastructure, and, consequently, the citizens suffer. And that's how things are going for us, for example, with doctors protesting a new agreement, teachers in the streets, and commuter trains at a standstill. But let's take it one step at a time.

We've read very different versions of the true meaning behind the maneuvers of Gabriel Rufián, the voice of ERC in Madrid, who has managed, through his own merits, to place himself in the Spanish media spotlight. He himself maintains that his is an honest effort to stop the foreseeable rise to power of Vox and the PP with an alliance of Sumar, Podemos, and the plurinational left. Period. Some believe that Rufián is acting independently, without the support of his party, and that his real objective is to ensure he remains the lead candidate, in contrast to those sectors that consider him a "soft" separatist, whose mission—or assignment—is to dilute the party's maximalist discourse. There are also those who claim that Oriol Junqueras is delighted that Rufián "complements" the official ERC discourse with a narrative more palatable to the non-separatist sectors that until now voted for the PSC or Comuns. And finally, there are the suspicious ones who believe that Rufián is preparing his political future outside the ERC party to become one of the leaders of the new Spanish left, which is in yet another process of reconfiguration.

We are not fed up with politics. We are fed up with politicians and this way of doing things that is spreading lies, recriminations, and a loss of direction. We are fed up with their degradation. We are tired of the public discourse of those in power, here and everywhere, right and left. This weariness does not express a rejection of collective life or democratic deliberation, but rather a clear intuition. Politics has been replaced by the management of power, by party logic, and by a technical administration of the present that has given up on thinking about the future as a shared project whose aim is the well-being of societies.

The mayor of Cunit, Jaume Casañas, wants the municipality to leave the Baix Penedès region and join the Garraf region, thus becoming part of the province of Barcelona. Casañas, who leads the Impulsem Cunit party, linked to Junts per Catalunya, is proposing a public referendum starting in 2027. Should the popular vote validate the proposal, approval would be required from the Catalan Parliament for the regional change and from the Spanish Congress for the provincial change. Casañas believes the referendum would garner a majority vote in favor: "90% of Cunit's current population has emotional ties to the province of Barcelona. On social media, we've detected that 80% of people are in favor of the regional and provincial change." The other parties represented on the council have not yet taken a position on the matter, but have not expressed opposition. Impulsamos a Cunit and the PSC have shared the local government since 2019 and have alternated in the mayoralty.

We are experiencing a paradoxical start to the year. Politics—especially international politics—is increasingly unstable: open conflicts, blurred alliances, and decisions that strain the global order. At the national level, parliamentary fragility and the lack of a budget hinder any significant reform. And yet, the economy seems to be progressing with surprising calm. Markets remain stable, and growth, both in the United States and in Catalonia and Spain, has exceeded many forecasts.

Just over a year ago, Núria Gil (Soses, 1981) left the Lleida Provincial Council to take up the position of delegate of the Generalitat (Catalan Government) in the Lleida district. At the provincial level, she was the coordinator of the PSC (Socialist Party of Catalonia) group, and she moved to the regional administration with little more experience than that of her hometown council.

Over the past ten years, several long-serving politicians from Tarragona have retired. In 2019, Josep Poblet, mayor of Vila-seca for 26 years (1993-2019), ended his long career in active politics, although he had been a councilor since 1987. He succeeded another historic but shorter-serving mayor, Joan Maria Pujals, and won a string of absolute majorities. He combined his last twelve years as mayor with the presidency of the Tarragona Provincial Council (2007-2019). He also served as a member of the Parliament of Catalonia for two short periods.

The latest barometer from the Center for Opinion Studies (CEO) has confirmed a widespread feeling In inland Catalonia: the rise of Aliança Catalana (AC) on the Catalan political scene, positioning it as the third strongest force in hypothetical regional elections. But that's not all. In the provinces of Lleida and Girona—from which the party's two current (and only) representatives in the Catalan Parliament hail: Sílvia Orriols, mayor of Ripoll, and Rosa Maria Soberana, from Vinaixa (Les Garrigues)—it would become the leading party. But what are the reasons behind this apparent exponential growth of Aliança in the Girona and Lleida regions?

A total investment of over sixty million euros and a hundred projects spread over the next seven years in the historic center of Lleida. This is the main headline that Mayor Fèlix Larrosa (PSC) announced on October 13th during the presentation of the new comprehensive plan for the neighborhood"The transformation of the historic center will be the largest undertaken by the city in the democratic era," declared Larrosa, citing "the restoration of livability, the increase in green spaces, the enhancement of public spaces and heritage, and the economic and social revitalization of the neighborhood" as the central pillars of this initiative, which aims to incorporate the Generalitat's Pla de Bar (Bar Plan). Despite the announcement, both some neighborhood leaders in the historic center and the main opposition political groups in the Lleida City Council have expressed skepticism. On paper, the new comprehensive plan, to be implemented between now and 2032, appears appealing. With projects to restore facilities such as the former Santa Teresa convent, the Mercat del Pla market, the Roman baths of Cardenal Remolins, and the Cervantes school, the Paeria (Lleida City Council) also plans the construction of 387 homes and up to 400 renovations, in addition to an urban forest of approximately 2,000 square meters. "We want to replace the current stock of aging and uninhabitable housing with new or renovated buildings that are accessible, efficient, and attract new residents, especially young people and families who want to live in a vibrant neighborhood," explains the mayor.

"Junts is a movement created under the leadership of Carles Puigdemont, in which, broadly speaking, there are two main groups: those who come from the former CiU and the people of October 1st, to put it simply. To regain the central political space in Catalonia, it will have to make a few decisions, such as whether or not to form a coalition with Aliança Catalana if necessary to govern the institutions, and, when Puigdemont returns, whether it has broad support to continue being a leader with great influence in society," reflected David Miró, deputy director of ARA, in an online meeting with the Spanish subscriber.

The arrival of the National Regrouping (RN) party to power in the Perpignan city council in 2020 sparked excitement as to how the far-right party would govern a city with more than 100,000 inhabitants and, furthermore, the capital of a department, two characteristics that make Perpignan unique in France. A city test, as some French media defined it, although there was already the example of Besiers –with around 80,000 inhabitants–, where RN came to power in 2014 and continues to do so after also winning the 2020 municipal elections.

The long-standing and most reliable journalist David Cantero said this phrase on the radio program he has presented and directed since September, RNE afternoons: "If dogs ruled the Earth, our planet would be an infinitely better place." And since I'm an animal lover, and I keep them close and take care of them because they make me laugh every day, I'm on board with the new world order he proposes. Let the dogs rule, with their way of seeing the world.

In times like these, is it possible to imagine ways of doing politics and leadership styles that do not only seek confrontation, pointing the finger at the adversary, or seeking audiences based on who says the loudest? We are at a juncture in which the complexity and gravity of the problems we face would seem to demand leadership and ideas that are up to the challenge, but, instead, simplification and bullyingAnd we have examples both far away and very close. All of this came to mind while watching Andrea Segre's film. The great ambition, which after a huge success in Italy, has been brought here by Filmin. The film features the great entanglements of Italian politics in the 1970s, starring Enrico Berlinguer, then Secretary General of the Italian Communist Party, but also featuring Aldo Moro, the Christian Democrat leader who was ultimately assassinated by the Red Brigades in 1978.Catalan Encyclopedia Enrico Berlinguer is often described as a politician born in Sàsser, Sardinia, to a family distantly related to Catalonia. There has been speculation about the connection between the surname Berlinguer and that of Berenguer, just as some recall that the bus that ran from Sàsser to Alghero was called La Freccia Catalana. But the truth is that the greatest mark that Enrico Berlinguer left in Catalonia is not determined by his origins, but by his enormous political influence in the configuration and political thinking of what, throughout the Franco regime, was the main party against the dictatorship, the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC). This influence was especially evident in the 1970s, in the final moments of Franco's regime and in the midst of the political transition to democracy. Berlinguer's transformation of the Italian Communist Party had a great impact on the PSUC, where people like Jordi Solé Tura had stood out by translating the works of Antonio Gramsci and who had always preferred the Italian communist tradition to the French one, more present in Santiago Carrillo's PCE.

You knew you'd come back from a walk and another disaster would be waiting for you on your phone in the form of a fire or a massacre. After dinner, a young woman told you she felt like she was playing the Hunger Games. A very old person commented that young people might be able to change things in the future, but that it saddened her to see that the aspirations of her youth—human rights, democracy, and social justice—seem to no longer have any value.

Santos Cerdán continues to defend his innocence, and now he has done so from prison, where he has already spent 35 days under investigation for alleged corruption, in an interview in The VanguardAfter that time in the cell, which he describes as "monotonous," he maintains that he has nothing to hide and, therefore, nothing to reveal. "I am innocent, and I have not done anything that the Civil Guard says," he asserts.

1. The latest CEO barometer indicated that Salvador Illa's PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) would win the elections again with the same number of seats that currently allow them to win, in a minority. The most striking headline was the rise of the far right. Vox is close to catching up with the PP in the Parliament, and, on the other hand, the rise of the Catalan Alliance would be practically at the same level as the decline of Junts (Junts). With Puigdemont as the leader, they managed to secure 35 seats in last year's elections, when the drought was identified as the main problem for the population. Today, the CEO (Central Council of Catalonia) gives them a maximum of 30 seats, despite remaining the second largest force. Catalonia needs a strong center-right party, one that is brave and can be voted for without having to secretly pick up the ballot. Or rather, there are a handful of hundreds of thousands of Catalans who need a party willing to govern, one that interprets the country as they see it. Flag, wallet, and well-being.