First point of contact for the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, with all political forces –except Vox– to put an end to the educational crisis. Together with the Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, he met with the parties with parliamentary representation and they agreed on the creation of two working groups to debate and finalize a national pact on the future model of the Catalan school, and to reach a consensus on a way to increase investment in education to reach 6% of the gross domestic product (currently it does not reach 4%). Even so, the parties have shown themselves to be skeptical of the plan and the main opposition party, Junts, has once again demanded Niubó's resignation.

Education is immersed in a permanent crisis. After months of teacher strikes and collecting poor student results, it has been joined by the PISA test fiasco. In this context, and after being requested by various parliamentary forces, the President of the Generalitat appeared in Parliament to provide explanations, but he completely exonerated the Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, and took refuge in the fact that he had already dismissed the department's number two. "The replacement of the Secretary General of Education has been executed," the socialist leader justified. Nevertheless, all the opposition parliamentary groups have demanded Niubó's resignation.

The municipal elections are approaching, polls predict a substantial growth of the far-right, and security is, more than ever, at the center of the debate. More and more leaders and parties, such as Junts and the PP, are hardening their rhetoric in this field. They want to prevent the debate from remaining solely in the hands of Aliança Catalana and Vox. And the president of the Generalitat and secretary-general of the PSC, Salvador Illa, does not want to be left on the sidelines either. In recent days, the head of the Government has chosen to reinforce messages against crime, especially regarding those offenses that most affect citizens' perception of insecurity.

At the entrance to La Zarza, a small Extremaduran town of about 3,000 inhabitants, there is a large Civil Guard presence. "This isn't normal, do you know what's happening?" asks the taxi driver. They are awaiting the visit of the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, to celebrate the National Day of Catalonia there. The whole town is full of it, it is the big event and there is quite a lot of anticipation. "There are posters everywhere and we've been notified through the Town Hall's WhatsApp groups," explains Amelia, a shoemaker at Calzados Moreno. Even so, not a single senyera (Catalan flag) is to be seen and quite a few Spanish flags are flying: the big question is whether the Catalan president—who has come as a sign of the fraternity between the peoples of the State—will be well received.

Salvador Illa has traveled to Extremadura to celebrate the Catalan National Day, seeking to extol the fraternity between the two territories and to vindicate the role of Extremadurans in the construction of Catalonia. The President of the Generalitat has lamented the years of the 'Procés'—in which "some spoke about others," but "some did not speak with others"—and has proclaimed the return of a "solidary" Catalonia that is favorable to understanding with Spain. However, the eternal tensions between the Principality and the rest of the State have resurfaced, and Illa has criticized in statements to the media the opposition of the vast majority of autonomous communities to the new financing, including that of the Junta of Extremadura governed by PP and Vox.

More goods on trains and fewer trucks on the roads. With this premise, the Government has made public a plan to grow freight transport by train in Catalonia, with a network of four new railway terminals in five years, which will help reduce the dependence – and congestion – of the road network for the transport of products.

Two years after arriving at the Generalitat, Salvador Illa has returned to appear at the Maritime Museum in an act of great pomp. More than 800 attendees were counted, and the entire Government was there, as well as the main union and business leaders, political representatives of various colors, and prominent members of the country's civil and economic society. The mid-term speech lasted about forty-five minutes – 28 pages of text – and from the Palace, it has been defined as a turning point in the legislature. The head of the executive took the opportunity to repeat some of his political messages, such as "unity" against the "division" of the Procés and opposition to the far-right; and he addressed various current issues, such as housing, infrastructure, immigration, and artificial intelligence. However, Illa is clear about what the target is: ending the educational crisis.

Salvador Illa has wanted to extend the institutional acts of the National Day in Spain and, this year, instead of also celebrating it in Madrid, the president of the Generalitat will travel to Extremadura, a region from which many Catalans originate. Government sources explain that the intention of the socialist leader in this trip on the upcoming September 16 and 17 is to vindicate "that which unites both territories, as well as the historical, family and cultural ties and bonds that unite Catalonia and Extremadura".

Salvador Illa has once again launched a message against xenophobic rhetoric and the political polarization that stems from it. In the institutional message for the National Day, the president of the Generalitat has once again reclaimed a "united" Catalonia, especially in the face of the rise of the far-right – both Vox and Aliança Catalana – and has warned that "in our home, there is no room for hate." Thus, the socialist president has called to "continue being one single people" and to maintain the "admirable capacity" to make people arriving from Andalusia, Extremadura, Morocco, and Colombia feel like "full-fledged Catalans." "No one is more Catalan than anyone else. We are all Catalonia," insisted Illa, in an institutional message from the Palau de la Generalitat.

People of all sensibilities united with one goal: to organize without incident the first authorized demonstration after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco on the National Day of Catalonia. Fifty years ago, on September 11, 1976, figures from the PSUC, from Jordi Pujol's circle, from the pro-independence republicanism, and, among many others, from socialism set aside their differences to take a giant step in the national and democratic freedoms of the country. A spirit, that of democratic unity, which the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, has now set as a model in the face of the rise of the far-right, both Spanish and Catalan.

The resignation of Josep Lluís Trapero as director of the Police has caused a political earthquake in Catalonia. The great bet of the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, to steer the Mossos force from a high political office with an experienced policeman has lasted two years, a period in which political criticisms have accumulated due to cases such as police infiltration in a teaching assembly and the force's deployment during King Felipe VI's visit to Montserrat. For this reason, after his resignation, the opposition has hit the nail on the head and pointed out the "lack of control" and "chaos" that the Interior department is suffering after Trapero's farewell, in the words of the main opposition group, Junts –Trapero's resignation comes shortly after that of the secretary general of the Interior, Tomàs Carrión–. The 'juntaires', in this sense, have demanded the appearance of the Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, and have lamented the "authentic mess" of this Government.

The Director General of Penal Execution in the Community and Juvenile Justice, Jesús del Cacho, has resigned after two years in office. The Government appointed the new director, criminal lawyer Paz Vallès, this very Tuesday.

Salvador Illa has been mirroring himself in Josep Tarradellas since he arrived at the Generalitat. He is, surely, the Catalan political leader he has cited the most. Not because of his more pro-independence beginnings, but because of his role in the Transition and his ability to get a large part of the Catalan political spectrum to understand each other to configure Catalan autonomy. An obsession that the socialist leader has channeled into the inauguration of the events to commemorate the fifty years since the republican leader's return to Catalonia and his famous "Citizens of Catalonia, I am here" in October 1977.

Salvador Illa arrived at the Palau de la Generalitat with the motto of "uniting and serving". To leave behind once and for all the years of the 'Procés', which he considers "divided" the country, and to dedicate himself above all to the management of the Catalan administration. These were supposed to be his main strengths. Halfway through the term, nothing suggests that the pro-sovereignty aspirations are reviving, but he has faced one crisis after another and has already suffered –for the moment– the farewell of a minister and three general secretaries in recent weeks (two just this week). And this start of the school year, which began with an important photo for Illa with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, also does not augur a calm second half of the term, which will be marked by the municipal elections and the shadow of electoral polls showing a PSC stalled or even with a slight loss of support.

The until now Secretary General of the Department of the Interior of the Generalitat, Tomàs Carrión, has resigned from his position as the number two of the department, according to sources from the department explained to ARA. From now on, Joana Ricardo Hoyos, who until now has been Director General of Security Administration, will assume this position.

After years of calls and stabilization processes, the Catalan public administration has achieved one of the objectives set by law 20/2021, which established reducing temporality in public employment as a prior step to the reform of the administration and the improvement of public services. According to data accessed by ARA, the Generalitat has registered the lowest level of temporality since there are data in the public employment database, the tool that collects the evolution of the Catalan public sector's staff and which has not been available online for months.

Salvador Illa reaches the halfway point of his term with the stability he sought, with his first budgets, but closes the political year without being able to quell one of the crises he has been dealing with for months: the educational one. In fact, the conflict with teachers has worsened in recent days following the PISA test fiasco, but the President of the Generalitat has once again reaffirmed his confidence in the Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, and has assured that the Government will go to the end to find out what happened. Despite the crisis, Illa has boasted about the country's progress and has put the new financing model as a "priority" for his term. In fact, he has expressed confidence in maintaining the support of his partners until the end of the legislature and has assured that he does not plan to make any further changes to his cabinet after the replacement of the head of Social Rights, Mònica Martínez Bravo.Freshly returned from his official trip to Vietnam and Singapore, Illa appeared this Friday at a press conference at the Palau de la Generalitat to review his second year in office and took the opportunity to announce an increase in public works in the coming months of around 500 million euros and also his next trip: Ukraine. "We are cooperating very well and it is important to send a message of support for the enormous effort being made," Illa defended. However, the president admitted that the Government has pending issues to resolve, including the housing crisis, but also to fulfill the flagship investiture agreement that the socialists signed with ERC: the new financing model. "It is the priority," he admitted.

The Ministry of Education warned the technical services of the Ministry of Education more than a year ago that the OECD had detected a higher exemption rate of Catalan students than permitted in the PISA 2025 tests. While the international organization sets that, in the sample of a territory, the percentage of students exempt from taking the test cannot exceed 5%, in Catalonia this rate soared to 23.3%. As reported by La Vanguardia and confirmed by the ministry in a statement, the warning occurred in April 2025, when the tests were already underway – they were held between March 31 and May 16 – and it was the company in charge of managing their application for the OECD that informed the State of the anomalies.

The Catalan company Openchip, specializing in the design and marketing of high-performance chips, receives a new injection of public funds to boost its project. This Monday, the Barcelona-based company has received 115 million euros from the Spanish government through the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT), also known as the central executive's technological SEPI.

The agreement between the Govern and ERC for the 2026 budgets, the first of Salvador Illa's presidency, is now signed. The president and Oriol Junqueras have signed the document in a brief ceremony early this morning at the Palau de la Generalitat, after the Republicans formally gave their yes to the accounts this Monday. The Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, has given all the details in a press conference early this morning and Junqueras will appear later, around half past eleven.