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.

The Government strengthens its objective of building 50,000 public housing units by 2030 with the announcement of a new investment. This Tuesday, the Catalan executive has authorized the Institut Català del Sòl (Incasòl) to allocate an additional 251.8 million euros to the promotion of affordable public homes, a figure that comes from the treasury reserves of the 2025 fiscal year and can be used throughout 2026. "This measure should allow for an increase in Incasòl's contribution to address the housing market situation, as well as the need to expand public housing stock," specify the Government agreements published this Tuesday, which also indicate that the executive is working on "other avenues" to expand the current housing supply.

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.

Pedro Sánchez chose Barcelona to make visible that there is an international left-wing front that can confront the reactionary wave led by Donald Trump. The Spanish president was the protagonist of the three summits that have been held almost in parallel in the Catalan capital, but Sánchez's choice has allowed his main ally in the State, Salvador Illa, to adopt a central role as host. It is not easy for a regional president to be received by a head of state and Illa has not missed the opportunity that Sánchez has given him to exchange words with some of the presidents who have visited the Catalan capital.

The Minister of Health, Olga Pané, has fractured her fibula in a domestic accident, as reported this Sunday by the Department of Health. During her recovery, the Government informs that the Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau, will assume her duties. In the statement, the Generalitat does not specify how long the minister may be on leave.

The Minister of Health, Olga Pané, has fractured her fibula in a domestic accident, as reported this Sunday by the Department of Health. During her recovery, the Government informs that the Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau, will assume her duties. In the statement, the Generalitat does not specify how long the minister may be on leave.

After the clash over budgets that were not even negotiated, the PSC and ERC reset the clock. It was in mid-March when the two parties decided to give themselves a new opportunity and resume talks once Salvador Illa withdrew the bill and Esquerra stopped making IRPF collection a red line. Since before Easter, therefore, socialists and republicans have been negotiating away from the spotlight that captured them before the debate on the entirety of the accounts. Talks are weekly and are conducted with secrecy. The deadline is July, but the Government is in a hurry and the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, has stated that the executive's wish is to have them validated by Sant Joan. Is this feasible?

In a context of tension between the Department of Education and union forces over the signed agreement to improve teachers' conditions and classroom situations, this week the Catalan Government sent an email to the families of the schools explaining the details of the agreement it reached with the CCOO and UGT unions, but which USTEC, the majority union, rejected. This action has made even more evident the discontent of the unions that had not viewed the Catalan Government's final proposal regarding teachers' conditions favorably. In this regard, USTEC has denounced what they consider "misuse of family contacts by the Catalan Government" and assures that sending the newsletter to parents is "making propaganda" for the agreement signed with CCOO and UGT.

The Government has placed Asia at the top of its international priorities list. So much so that the president, Salvador Illa, made his first two intercontinental trips there, first to Japan and Korea, and then to China. This week, the Minister of European Union and External Action, Jaume Duch, has returned to the Asian giant for the second time to continue working hard and strengthen the ties between Catalonia and the country, while awaiting the finalization of procedures to open the new delegation of the Generalitat in Beijing. This Friday, the minister signed, on behalf of the Government, two memorandums of understanding with the leading provinces of Jiangsu and Hainan, where he also participated in the Boao Forum, the Asian Davos.

After doing a reset With ERC, the government hopes that negotiations with the Republicans will bear fruit and that the budget will be approved before Sant Joan (St. John's Day), but ERC is reluctant to commit to anything more than continuing to discuss it. While the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, wants to bring the budget back to Parliament between the end of April and the beginning of May and have it approved before June 24, the ERC spokesperson, Isaac Albert, refuses to set a timetable and asks the Socialists to make proposals that allow Catalonia to "gain sovereignty" in order to secure a budget. In any case, the PSC and ERC will resume negotiations this week.

The seal on the agreement was put by Salvador Illa and Oriol Junqueras in a meeting of just over two hours at the Palau de la Generalitat on Tuesday afternoon. But the pact had been being forged since the previous weekend after days of deadlock. At the Palau and at the PSC headquarters, the strategy of buying time to avoid a parliamentary defeat that would have left the executive shaken eventually prevailed. The party's number 2, Lluïsa Moret, had a lot to do with it, explain various sources to ARA. But to limit the damage, the socialists demanded, in return, a commitment from the republicans to stop positioning the IRPF as a red line. All this, to reset the clock. To get here, however, the conversations went through ups and downs, from tense meetings to lunches and homemade doughnuts to save the negotiation.

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The president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, presented a budget proposal to force negotiations with ERC, but the gamble backfired. The first lesson of this political crisis, which has led him to withdraw the budget proposal, is that the government cannot act as if it has a majority it does not. The investiture agreement brought Illa to the presidency of the Generalitat, but he needs to negotiate and uphold agreements to continue making progress in the legislature.

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Salvador Illa decided to push ahead after ERC's refusal to negotiate the budget and presented the bill two weeks ago without having the Republicans' support guaranteed. This pressure tactic against Oriol Junqueras' party failed to budge them from their position: the Republicans had maintained their red line for beginning negotiations unless the Spanish government made a gesture of ceding control over income tax revenue. The budget was headed for failure this Friday, as Esquerra would have voted for its amendment to the entire bill, thus causing it to collapse. To avoid defeat, Salvador Illa decided to withdraw the budget this Wednesday. as some sources consulted by the ARA pointed outand give negotiations with the Republicans another chance. However, Esquerra has also shifted its position and no longer refers to income tax as a condition. sine qua non to negotiate the budget. "It's a very important condition," Oriol Junqueras stated when journalists asked him if it remained an "essential" condition, as it had been until now. In fact, Esquerra has opened itself to negotiating an alternative proposal to the Personal Income Tax (IRPF) if the Catalan Government puts one on the table. The target date for a new budget is before the summer.

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The Catalan government's budget continues to hang by a thread. If the PSC and ERC don't find a solution before Friday, the budget approved by Salvador Illa's administration two weeks ago will collapse. Republicans and Socialists are maintaining open dialogue to try to avoid a clash before Friday, and they held more meetings this Tuesday: they met this afternoon at the Palau de la Generalitat—among those present were the Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau, and the ERC's Director General, Lluís Salvadó—and are scheduled to meet again this afternoon. Two scenarios are on the table: that the Catalan government withdraws the budget or that ERC withdraws its amendment to the entire budget. Both options are designed to prevent the budget from failing and buy time to try to get the negotiations back on track. At this point, however, the Catalan government maintains that it is not willing to withdraw the budget proposal. "We are not there at this time," the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, stated in an interview with RTVE. "We are at this stage and we are not considering any other," added the Government spokesperson and Minister of Territory, Sílvia Paneque, at a press conference, who called for "prudence" and "responsibility" in these final days of negotiations before Friday.

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The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, has convened the parliamentary groups at the Palau de la Generalitat to address the potential consequences of the conflict in the Middle East and analyze how Catalonia should respond. The meeting began in the early afternoon and includes representatives from all parliamentary groups except Vox and Aliança Catalana. This summit is the result of of a request that Junts conveyed to the president in the last control session of the Parliament to share measures that anticipate the negative effects of the conflict.

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The first budgets designed by Salvador Illa's government are "fully focused on municipal development." This is the thesis that The Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau, defended in his first appearance in Parliament To explain the main lines of the budget, with 9.1 billion euros more available for the Generalitat compared to 2023. One of the secretariats that fares best is that of Local Governments and Relations with the Aran Valley, which increases from 196.5 million euros to 351 million to give municipalities a boost to carry out urgent works, unblock projects that have been stalled for years, or continue with the neighborhood planAll of this comes a year before the elections, a crucial event for mayors, where everyone wants to arrive with as much work done as possible to showcase during the campaign. What could the municipalities lose if the Catalan Parliament ends up rejecting the budget? No From Esquerra?

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