The spokesperson for ERC in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, recited on Wednesday, one by one, from the rostrum, the names of all the Junts deputies who had voted against the decree on rent extensions. He did so with a 50-euro banknote unfolded on the lectern and after saying that it was Junts' only "flag." This public singling out was followed by an attempted assault on the Junts deputy and former mayor of Girona, Marta Madrenas, and the publication of false information on social networks suggesting that all Junts deputies had rental income from properties.

Gabriel Rufián directly addresses the Junts deputies and shows them a 50 euro bill: "This is your flag, the one you share with the PP and Vox". And, afterwards, he lists one by one the parliamentarians who vote against the rental extension and goes up to the seats where Míriam Nogueras and the rest of the group sit to give them a dossier full of tweets against the political position of Carles Puigdemont's party. "I've removed the insults," he warns. In this way, the spokesperson for Esquerra in Congress defended the yes to the decree for the rental extension and attacked the Junts members for their opposition on Tuesday in the Spanish chamber. A staging that has ignited the relationship between the Republicans and Carles Puigdemont's party, but which, according to various sources consulted by ARA, has also not pleased some ERC leaders in Barcelona and Madrid who are wary of Rufián's methods: they criticize Junts' position on housing —they speak of "abominable"—, but they do not like the spokesperson's way of acting in Congress. In fact, not all Esquerra deputies applauded after his speech on Tuesday. Officially, the Republican leadership avoids making any comment.

Salvador Illa fails to calm the waters among the educational community. Unions have called for up to 17 days of strike over the next two months in protest of the agreement that the Government signed with CCOO and UGT, but not with USTEC. Salvador Illa's executive, however, despite the scale of the protest, does not plan to budge and has so far defended the pact signed a few months ago. In fact, it has invited the majority union, USTEC, to join it. "An agreement has been signed that is the best ever signed," stated the president of the Generalitat during Wednesday's control session in Parliament. These words are in addition to those spoken on Tuesday by the Government spokesperson, Sílvia Paneque, who made it clear that the Government will not amend the signed agreement, but will only put "arguments" on the table to convince USTEC, whom she also invited to join in "rolling out" this pact.

The far-right has been generating synergies with fake media for years to influence public opinion. But it is not an exclusive strategy of this political space, at least in Catalonia. A journalistic investigation confirms that Comuns and ERC manage and finance content platforms in web format and through social networks aimed at younger audiences. These are El Moment (ERC) and La Futura (Comuns), two digital channels that, in the eyes of the public, present themselves as media outlets, but are used as tools for disseminating the ideology of political parties. The PSC, for its part, has created Posem el focus, a podcast in which they do not explicitly state their political brand.

The Spanish government and ERC formalized the agreement for a new regional financing in January, with a presentation by the then first vice-president and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, after months of negotiations with the Republicans. The pact was brought before the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy (CPFF), where it was met with a resounding rejection from the regional councilors of the PP. The Spanish government, however, defended the merits of the new model for weeks and explained that it was drafting the law that would allow it to be submitted for debate by the parliamentary groups in Congress. Three months later and with a new minister at the helm, Arcadi España, the regulation has still not been made public, there have been no bilateral meetings with the regional councilors, and it has not yet begun to be processed. The debate has taken a back seat in the public sphere, especially after the falling out between Esquerra and the socialists over the transfer of IRPF collection.

President Salvador Illa is known for being a punctual person. And this Sant Jordi day, he even arrived a quarter of an hour early. The head of the executive arrived at quarter past four at the PSC stall when journalists had been summoned for half past four and made a lightning tour of the intersection of Rambla Catalunya with Diputació street. There, Illa took the first photos with some supporters and exchanged a few words with the second vice-president of the Parliament's board, David Pérez, and also with the Minister of Justice, Ramon Espadaler.

After seeing humanoid robots running and winning the Beijing Half Marathon this weekend, anything is possible. Humanoid robots are no longer that broom handle with legs that stumbles and trips spectacularly, but they already have enough coordination to be running for 50 minutes faster than a person. The applications of the invention, military, labor, social, are so great that we must resort to the classic “the future is already here”. As I said, robots surpassed people, which is no longer news if we think that machines have been surpassing us in computing power for a long time. Therefore, the news is once again a geopolitical warning: the Chinese race in robotics is also going very fast. And us with Trump, the Strait of Hormuz and Rodalies.The progressive festival that Sánchez brought to Barcelona this weekend had a curious epilogue: The President of Brazil, Lula de Silva, went to pray for a while in the main nave of the Sagrada Família, where he gifted himself “a moment of peace, prayer and reflection in a place that inspires unity and hope”. This moment is very well, considering that politics does not grant any respite. Example: while Sánchez was gathering the left-wing parties in Barcelona, who was Feijóo meeting with? With the Venezuelan Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado. This morning, Machado was the guest at an informative breakfast in Madrid. And who introduced her to the audience? Felipe González, who runs in the opposite direction to Pedro Sánchez in everything.Finally, in more predictable territory, the Government and ERC are presenting today the Consortium for Investments in Catalonia, which will be the body responsible for monitoring the compliance of State investments in Catalonia. The investment consortium was one of the agreements included in Salvador Illa's investiture pact. This consortium must monitor the number and destination of investments, but also their execution, to prevent the amounts that Spanish governments, whether from PP or PSOE, allocate in budgets from being an approximate reference: less than half of the planned investments are executed. If you think about it coldly, how are we to see ourselves: creating an organism to ensure that the government complies with the budgets, that is, with the law. Hopefully it works, but allow me to express all my skepticism, based on real facts: governments make agreements, but senior officials, or unions, or a PP-VOX majority, will come along afterwards and decide.Good morning.

Junquerasism recovers the Barcelona federation. Ricard Farin, ERC's officialist candidate to lead the party in the Catalan capital, has won this Friday's primaries with 60.1% of the votes against the critics' candidate, Rosa Suriñach, who obtained 36.1% of the votes. In total, 72% of the membership participated, a figure exactly the same as a year ago, when the critics won by 14 votes. That leadership, which Creu Camacho had led for a year, blew up a few months ago when more than half of the executive resigned due to disagreements with the direction Camacho had taken. The internal rebellion has not benefited the critics, but rather the officialists have recovered a federation that had historically resisted the national leadership and acted as a counter-power.

Junqueras's movement regains the Barcelona federation. Ricard Farin, the official ERC candidate to lead the party in the Catalan capital, has won Friday's primaries with 60.1% of the vote (393 ballots) against the critics' candidate, Rosa Suriñach, who obtained 36.1% of the votes (236 ballots); there were 25 blank votes. In total, 72% of the membership participated, an exact figure to that of a year ago, when the critics won by 14 votes. That leadership, which Creu Camacho had led for a year, blew up a few months ago, when more than half of the executive resigned due to disagreements with the direction Camacho had taken. The internal rebellion has not benefited the critics; instead, the officialists have regained a federation that had historically resisted national leadership and had acted as a counter-power.

In March 2007, 19 years ago, hundreds of representatives of the so-called Catalan civil society filled the Iese to the brim in an event that became a true claim for the need to bring the management of a key infrastructure such as Barcelona airport closer to the territory. Almost two decades have passed since then and the issue, which has been resurfacing over the years, is back on the table, now with a public-private centralized operator, Aena. Issues that have been raised for a long time have not yet been resolved, such as the accounts of each of the airports in the network – they are presented as a whole, without detailing the parts that make them up or what some gain and others lose, or which ones subsidize the others, etc.

Ricard Farin (Barcelona, 1995) is a candidate to lead the republican federation in Barcelona with the Activem Barcelona candidacy, the list considered to be from the establishment.

Rosa Suriñach (Barcelona, 1981) is a councilor of ERC in the Barcelona City Council and a candidate to preside over the federation with the candidacy Construïm Barcelona, which brings together the critics.

"The position is very clear," the Finance ministers keep repeating, even though the hottest part of IRPF collection is up in the air. First, it was María Jesús Montero who closed the door on the transfers agreed between ERC and PSC, and now her successor has taken on this role. Arcadi España assures that the Spanish government will not deviate from the agreement signed between Moncloa and the Generalitat in the meeting of the Bilateral Commission last July: "For all the autonomous communities and also for Catalonia, we have the will to increase management capacity, always within the framework of the State Tax Administration Agency (AEAT)." What does this mean? Basically, that the transfer to Catalonia of the collection of 100% of the IRPF is not a commitment that the state executive makes its own, and that, in any case, it will be the AEAT that will have the powers in management and collection. The Catalan Tax Agency (ATC) should settle for collaborating in "a networked tax management model," as specified in the Bilateral document.

Pío Cabanillas' outburst is often cited, who in the years of the Transition, leaving a stormy UCD congress, said “We have won, but we don't know who”. Something similar happens to current Catalan politics when talking about unity. We want unity, but we don't know whose. We know we have to unite, but we don't know what or whom we are referring to when we talk about us.Unity is one of those big words that, like progress or freedom, become empty concepts when they are mishandled by the political class. In general, when a leader advocates for union, they conceive of it as a concentration of forces around themselves. And that, of course, has little to do with authentic unity, which implies mutual approach, concession.I am one of those who think that unity is a false dogma that is often contrasted with division, when its opposite, in fact, is plurality. And in democracy, plurality is necessary. It is the inevitable starting point for reaching consensus, broad majorities: another type of unity, which does not imply uniformism and does not generate vetoes.In Catalonia, this kind of unity based on pluralism is necessary. Because the country has very serious problems and demands far-reaching reforms, which are impossible with a too atomized Parliament, and with a growing presence of the far-right. And this implies forming transversal majorities, which overflow the boundaries between left and right, and between sovereigntism and Spanish nationalism. I will be more precise: there are a series of issues (language, health, education, infrastructure) that should be based on a strategic agreement between the PSC, Junts, ERC, and Comuns. They are the formations that can guarantee an operational parliamentary majority.

Gabriel Rufián and Irene Montero defended on Thursday from Barcelona a left-wing front for the upcoming general elections. The Republican spokesperson in Madrid was faithful to his most direct and, in some cases, provocative style. Rufián filled the auditorium of the Pompeu Fabra University with slogans to support his strategy to combat the far-right. These are some of those that summarize his speech:

Whatever politicians (and, of course, analysts) do or say is conditioned by a major force, which is the impact of the war in Iran, which has not yet ended because it hangs by a very thin thread, which is the fifteen-day ceasefire. Yesterday, the International Monetary Fund warned states that “it is necessary to prepare for the worst”, because prices will rise, there may be a shortage of products or supply chain disruptions, because there will be no orderly return to normality, money will be charged more dearly to curb inflation, and states will not be able to indefinitely support tax cuts like the one approved by the Spanish government on the price of gasoline. All politics will have to operate under the impact of the war on people's pockets and public budgets. In this sense, this Trump war does no favors to the European far-right partners, such as Vox. But Pedro Sánchez polarizes the vote in Spain and voting against it or voting against the far-right is and will surely be a reason to go vote on the day it matters.From this fear of the far-right lives Rufián's project of uniting the left to the left of the PSOE.In yesterday's event in Barcelona, Rufián gave a headline, which is that Yesterday Rufián asked Esquerra to take the lead in the operation. Esquerra will not officially respond to Rufián. However, the party says that if it were up to Esquerra, the right-wing would never govern anywhere, not even in Spain, that they are aware that democracy could be at stake, but that it is not Esquerra's function to solve the discussions and egos of the Spanish left-wing parties. 

What should be the unitary left-wing front proposed by Gabriel Rufián? Aware that his party, ERC, does not subscribe to the proposal, the republican spokesperson made an explicit request to him this Thursday: "I ask my party to lead this. And if it costs me my position, I'll go home." Rufián wants Oriol Junqueras' party to adopt the proposal and unite, under its banner, this confluence in Catalonia. And in the State? The republican spokesperson in Madrid has argued that Podemos should play this role: "Podemos can help these confluences." The second stop on his tour of the State has taken him to Barcelona, to the auditorium of the Campus de la Ciutadella at Pompeu Fabra University, alongside Irene Montero, Podemos's number two, who has taken up the proposal's gauntlet.

New mass resignation at ERC. After the cases of Girona and Barcelona, where the resignation of more than half of the executives forced the appointment of a caretaker committee, now comes that of Igualada. In this case, all members of the leadership have decided to step down in response to the recent internal vote, which rejected the Rufián path (coalition with Comuns and CUP) that the resigning members had advocated for the upcoming municipal elections. And, as in the Girona and Barcelona cases, they leave with direct criticism of the party's national executive, chaired by Oriol Junqueras.

New mass resignation in ERC. After the cases in Girona and Barcelona, where the resignation of more than half of the executives forced a caretaker committee to be put in charge, now comes that of Igualada. In this case, all members of the leadership have decided to resign in response to the recent internal vote, which rejected the Rufián path (coalition with Comuns and CUP) which the resigning members had bet on for the upcoming municipal elections. And, as in the cases of Girona and Barcelona, they leave with direct criticism of the party's national executive, chaired by Oriol Junqueras.

This afternoon, Esquerra's spokesperson in Madrid, Gabriel Rufián, will present in Barcelona his proposal for a broad left-wing front, which he already presented in Madrid in February. He will be accompanied by Irene Montero, from Podem, but neither Oriol Junqueras nor Elisenda Alamany will be there.And they won't be there because they don't agree with Rufián's proposal to unite everything to the left of the PSOE to curb the far-right. Basically, because Esquerra's objective is to replace the socialists in Catalonia, not to position itself to their left. In the same way that for many years, and still now, first Convergència and then Junts occupied in Catalonia part of the space that the PP occupies in Spain, Esquerra has always wanted to get ahead of the PSC, and therefore Junqueras finds, to put it in current terms, that this is not his war, that if Podem or Sumar or Més Madrid have a representation problem, they will deal with it themselves.From here comes the headline of this chronicle, which is that Rufián is once again testing ERC's patience, and to be more precise, Junqueras', who said that he did not spend four years in prison to put Ada Colau as a candidate. The party leadership has seen how Rufián has started to fly solo, has created his own political and personal brand by expressing himself as if he were the critical conscience of the Spanish left, and goes so far as to recall that he lives in the Basque Country and works in Madrid but does not visit Catalonia much. The situation is ironic, because Rufián is a political creation of Junqueras, the personification of an intuition: for Esquerra to enter the metropolitan area of Barcelona, it was necessary to have a candidate who was like the majority of metropolitan voters. The bet was disruptive and it worked. Precisely because of this, Junqueras still needs Rufián with one year to go until the municipal elections. And Rufián obviously needs Esquerra for his project of left-wing synthesis throughout Spain.Meanwhile, this morning President Illa received Minister Puente at the Palau de la Generalitat, amid smiles of complicity. Puente's reluctance with the chaos of Renfe and Adif in Catalonia is shown by the fact that Illa and Puente concluded this meeting taking advantage of the minister's presence in Barcelona because yesterday evening he attended the presentation of the first edition of the Aena literary awards. The Secretary of State who came to live in Catalonia left after a month. The problems that were supposed to be solved in April are now said to be solved in June. Ila's government has discovered that it was not so easy to solve problems through good governance and reconciliation with Spain, thanks to having an allied government in Madrid. Neither with Rodalies, nor with financing, nor with almost anything. Good morning.