The World Cup final between Spain and Argentina this Sunday has highlighted the different stances within the independence movement regarding support for the Spanish national football team, a debate that already occurred during Euro 2024. But the insistence with which some of its leaders have come out in recent days with open shows of support for la roja has reopened a debate that the sovereignty movement has never fully resolved: what to do when Spain wins?

Journalistic independence has always been difficult. Information is power. What power does not want to influence the media, who does not want to condition them, who does not want to control them? Not being influenced, conditioned, and controlled is part of the essence of the profession since journalism is journalism. This does not prevent each masthead from having a positioning or editorial line, a background ideology from which it looks at, explains, and interprets facts, reality.

The CEO survey confirms the trends that ARA's already pointed to and which draws a double axis of growth on the Catalan political map: one that concentrates opposition to Salvador Illa's executive, and which is currently held by Aliança Catalana, and another that gathers the left-wing vote considered most useful to stop the far-right, which is currently ERC of the Junqueras-Rufián tandem. To summarize, we can say that Aliança is the anti-Illa party and ERC is the anti-Orriols party. And currently, the survey places these two parties vying for second position in hypothetical parliamentary elections.

July will be a thrilling month for the Ministry of Finance. Not only because it has put underway the machinery to present the 2027 budgets –with the vote on the stability path in Congress and the presentation of the spending ceiling–, but because it will be key to the funding model. After almost two years of negotiation with Esquerra and the Generalitat, this week the ministry plans to send the draft of the new funding system law in writing and July 29th minister Arcadi Spain will make it official in a new meeting of the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy. And it will be at this meeting that all common-regime autonomies (the Basque Country and Navarre are excluded) will vote against the model, with the exception of Catalonia.

Judicial proceedings are piling up in Altafulla. In addition to the case concerning the awards to former minister Joan Ignasi Elena and former leader of Iniciativa Joan Herrera, which also involves the Commons deputy Félix Alonso and former minister Salvador Milà, now another case directly implicates the mayor, Jordi Molinera (ERC), and councilor Tomàs Serra, who was elected by Junts and remains in government as an independent after his former party left the coalition government last year. In fact, this move is what is now in the sights of the courts of El Vendrell, where an investigation has been opened following a complaint by the president of Junts in Altafulla for the alleged crimes of bribery and prevarication. In an order to which el ARA has had access, the judge summons Serra and Molinera to testify as investigated parties in this case on January 2, 2027.

The Parliament demands "immediately" the transfer to the Generalitat of the properties and health facilities located in Catalonia that continue to be state-owned. The motion, promoted by ERC and approved with the votes of all groups except Vox and the PP, which voted against it, gives the Catalan executive a maximum of six months to prepare and present a fully updated inventory of all properties of the Generalitat's health system that are not its own. The report must specify the legal status, the registry status, the estimated asset value, the net book value of the assets, and the investments made by the Catalan administration.

Salvador Illa will reach the midpoint of the legislature with the political stability he sought. This Thursday, Parliament has definitively approved the budgets that he agreed upon a few weeks ago with Esquerra and Comuns, the two investiture partners, who this morning added their votes to validate the first accounts of the socialist government – Junts deputy Noemí Nieto also voted in favor by mistake. Accounts that will reach almost 50,000 million euros, 22% more than those of 2023, the last project still approved under the presidency of Pere Aragonès. This Thursday's plenary session also validated the budget accompanying law, which includes, among other things, increasing the tourist tax to 30 euros per day for cruise ships calling at Barcelona and creating the Catalan Airport Authority. Illa thus guarantees himself to reach the end of the legislature with updated budgets and a parliamentary majority that requires the Government to continue for its agreements to be fulfilled.

After some turbulent recent times with internal crises and opposing sectors, ERC experienced this Monday the birth of a new organization that does not seek to take control of the party, but rather to strengthen it and make it more attractive to sectors that have not yet approached it. This is the challenge undertaken by ERC deputies in the Parliament and Congress, Carles Campuzano and Francesc-Marc Álvaro, who have presented Esquerra Democràtica, an association affiliated with the republican formation, whose objective is to attract the centrist sovereignist vote.

María Pozuelo (Lanzarote, 1976), coordinator of Podem Catalunya since June 28, 2025, just one year ago, receives ARA when the pre-campaign for the municipal elections begins and coincides with a climate of possible pacts in the left bloc.

Gabriel Rufián said on Thursday that the PSOE had already contacted them to discuss next year's budgets. However, he did not reveal whether the Republicans were willing to negotiate them or if they had already decided on the conditions they would set. He simply said he hoped the Spanish government would present the accounts to "negotiate and approve them," meaning they should not be "an excuse or a lever for other things," in reference to a possible early election. Is ERC really willing to negotiate the budgets?

In the midst of a conflict with Gabriel Rufián, Oriol Junqueras met with the parliamentary group in Madrid this Wednesday. The meeting lasted about two hours and, according to consulted sources, the open battle within the parliamentary group in Madrid due to the lack of harmony between the Republican spokesperson and the majority of his party colleagues was not brought up. The leadership shared the party's strategy for the end of the Spanish legislature with the parliamentary group. However, as the party explained in a statement, Junqueras also asked the deputies for "coordination" to face "the challenges" of this legislature. Thus, he conveyed to them the "need to face this stage with the utmost demand, determination, and coordination". "The decisions that will have to be made in the coming months will be decisive in guaranteeing more resources, more decision-making power, and more well-being for the country as a whole," adds the party. Until now, the leadership had prescribed patience to the parliamentary group in Madrid.

The PSC, Esquerra and Comuns have reached an agreement to increase the tourist tax for cruise ships calling at Barcelona. Through an amendment to the Generalitat's budget accompanying law, presented this Tuesday in Parliament, the three groups will force an increase in the tax to 30 euros for ships that are less than 12 hours in the Catalan capital.

The new cases of alleged corruption surrounding the PSOE have brought to the fore more strongly than ever a possible motion of no confidence against Pedro Sánchez. At the municipal level, however, motions do not necessarily have to be linked to corrupt schemes. Political and, above all, personal disagreements also end up ousting mayors. This is what has happened in Pont de Molins, a small town of less than 600 inhabitants in L'Alt Empordà. But here, the trigger for the change in mayorship, however hard to believe, has been a yoga class.

Gabriel Rufián has been insisting for months on forming a sovereignist left-wing front in the State and, at the same time, has an open battle within his parliamentary group. There is no understanding or harmony with the majority of his party colleagues and the conflict has been escalating for months. That is why it is relevant that, in this context, a meeting is scheduled in Madrid next week with Oriol Junqueras. According to what ARA has learned, the president of Esquerra will be in the Spanish capital and will meet with the party's deputies in Congress. A meeting that could be routine if the conflict with Rufián were not looming.

A few days ago, Floren Aoiz was in Palma, a Navarrese abertzale activist with a long trajectory, currently responsible for the area of political relations with the State of EH Bildu. Invited by the Darder Mascaró Foundations and the La Col·lectiva association, he granted an interview with Anna Mascaró, from Ara Balears, in which he said very interesting things. For example: “In Euskal Herria there is a greater tendency towards sovereignty among Basque speakers (...) but there are also many non-Basque speaking sovereigntists. In recent years, more: it is a growth linked to the perception that sovereignty offers an alternative for society as a whole. An alternative not only of the left, but also linked to society's ability to govern itself. To understand self-government in a certain direction, which is the defense of public services, the defense of better living and working conditions... A model of coexistence. In the case of Euskal Herria, the aspiration for sovereignty means that we want to obtain this sovereignty with respect to the Spanish and French states. But in the world we live in, it is also a demand for democratic sovereignty against capital, against international capital flows and decisions in which peoples have very little say”.It is so. Nine, ten years ago, when Catalan sovereignism was able to propose a true alternative, that is to say: a Republic based precisely on coexistence, equal opportunities (this implies the defense of public services and good living and working conditions), it had an absolute majority in Parliament, it confronted the Spanish state and obtained —briefly, but it obtained it— world attention. Many saw it as a threat to the established order, but this was precisely the greatness of the proposal and what made, in the eyes of many others, the Catalan Republic not seem like a threat, but rather a hope. The old order was what the Spanish state represented; the Catalan Republic represented —it promised— a step forward in rights and freedoms, a new 21st-century Republic, progressive, advanced, mature, capable of including citizens rooted in the past and those who have just arrived. A country founded on the Catalan language and culture, in dialogue with the languages and cultures of the world.Political defeat led to another self-inflicted defeat. A tortured abandonment in internal hemorrhages, psychodramas, obsessive searches for culprits, and idealizations of pasts supposedly better than they ever existed as invoked. Withdrawal, conservatism, and ultra-conservatism: the attitudes of the fearful and the opportunists who believe their moment has come to command something, even if it's just scraps. There are those who still insist on denying the existence of a Catalan far-right, even when it's right in front of them, and those who consider a poll sums to an "independentist majority" with the seats of Junts and ERC plus those of Aliança Catalana. This is indeed the direct path to definitive failure.

In a month's time, Salvador Illa's government will have approved the first budgets of the legislature. An agreement with Comuns and ERC that gives the executive breathing room and certifies that this is currently the only viable majority in Catalonia. Republicans and Comuns already invested Illa and, despite the tug-of-war of the last two years, they continue to be the partners that give him stability. Even to avoid inconvenient appearances by the president in Parliament. This Tuesday, for the second consecutive week, ERC, Comuns, and the PSC prevented the chamber from summoning Illa. Junts wanted him to appear to explain the role of the Generalitat in the crisis opened with public school teachers. Seven days ago, the Junts, with the support of PP and Vox, demanded that the president respond for the cases of alleged corruption that splash the PSOE (and that the judge does not rule out entirely that they have a derivative in the PSC).

It is not a new conflict. In the ERC parliamentary group in Madrid, things have not been calm for some time. The coexistence between Gabriel Rufián and a part of the group has reached an almost unsustainable point. And the party leadership has known this for a long time. The confrontation has intensified in recent months and has gone beyond the limits of Congress since the spokesperson for the Republicans launched his proposal for a left-wing front – which the Republican leadership rejects – and has threatened not to run again as an ERC candidate if the leadership does not accept his conditions: to surround himself with a trusted team and have more decision-making power in Madrid. How does Oriol Junqueras' leadership plan to address this conflict?

Salvador Illa's first budgets passed their initial parliamentary stage this Thursday. The debate on the entirety of the accounts once again highlighted the alliance that brought the socialist president to the Palau de la Generalitat and which the Government intends to serve it to reach the end of the legislature. Thus, the budgets have begun to be processed with the support of the two investiture partners, ERC and Comuns, with whom the Government reached an agreement two weeks ago. The executive, however, has not managed to secure the 'yes' of any of the opposition groups: Junts, the CUP, Aliança, the PP, and Vox had presented amendments in their entirety, four texts that have been rejected. The words of the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, asking them to come out of the "trench" and defending accounts that reach almost 50 billion euros and grow by 22% compared to those of 2023, have not served to convince them. And even more so when, during the debate, the news broke that teachers rejected the unions' agreement with Education. Junts and the CUP have taken the opportunity to attack the executive, while the partners have asked the Government to reopen negotiations.

"I will not run again for ERC if certain conditions are not met," stated Gabriel Rufián at a conference in Madrid a few days ago. The Republican spokesperson in Congress said this after once again defending a common left-wing front and offering himself to lead it. A proposal that the ERC leadership rejects because they do not see it as viable. However, they maintain that Rufián continues to be their choice to lead the list in general elections. The Republican spokesperson, however, assures that to repeat as a candidate, he wants two basic conditions to be met. Which ones? He did not specify them publicly at that conference, but limited himself to talking about the "parliamentary group" and making it clear what they are facing. What does this translate to? The ERC spokesperson in Madrid wants to surround himself with a trusted team and list, but also wants to have more influence on decisions that depend on Madrid. Two conditions that make the party uncomfortable.

It is now known that the end of the Spanish legislature will be a judicial ordeal for the PSOE. As we explain today, there are up to seven open judicial fronts against members of the party or the government, and that's if there are no secret cases underway that could appear at any moment. Many things can be said, but the only certainty is that the legislature began with right-wing protests in the streets and demonstrations by judges against the amnesty law, and it ends with a judicial siege on a party as has not been remembered at least since the end of the Francoist era.