This afternoon, the Government and education unions are meeting, to see if they can reach an agreement to call off the mobilizations that continue to be scheduled for the coming weeks and until the end of the school year. The Government has proposed advancing by one year the salary increase agreed with UGT and CCOO, more money for tutoring allowances, and a reinforcement of staff for inclusive schools. Positions are far apart. The conflict seems far from being resolved. However, the Government breathes more calmly after securing the 'yes' from Esquerra to the budgets.But the political news continues to be strongly conditioned by Zapatero's indictment, which has fallen like a bomb on Sánchez's government. Because Zapatero was, as Feijóo told Sánchez this morning, "his moral compass." In the control session of the Spanish government in the Congress of Deputies, a defensive Sánchez was seen. Listening to him, whether he was answering Feijóo or Rufián, it seems clear that Zapatero's indictment is already hitting the government's core, that there are not many more arguments left in Moncloa to defend themselves, and that it is now all about repeating that the elections will be next year and will not be brought forward.Where does this impression come from? Well, from the fact that instead of convincingly denying any possibility of corruption, Sánchez recalled Zapatero's merits: that he ended ETA, that he took Spain out of the Iraq war, that he got same-sex marriage approved… Even, Sánchez has brought out the worn-out card of Feijóo's photos on a narco's boat, in Galicia, years ago. And Feijóo has felt brave enough to twist Aznar's call to action (“he who can, let him do it”) and has transformed it into “he who can, let him steal”.Then it was Rufián's turn to ask, who with a desolate tone, as if someone in his family had died, almost implored Sánchez to give “some answer”. To Zapatero, the man who defeated the PP against all odds that very tough weekend in March 2004, the populars really want him. But today, in Congress, the feeling has been that the imputation of justice has decimated the reserves of conviction, which were already meager, that remained in the Spanish left.Good morning.

The imputation of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero before the National Court is an earthquake of still incalculable scope for Spanish politics. News that has shaken the PSOE and given the PP a new reason to attack the Spanish government and ask the Socialists to leave Moncloa. That is why all eyes were on Congress at first, where the first reaction of the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, to the issue was expected. And the script has not changed: "All my support for President Zapatero," he said. "If you want to look at corruption, look in the mirror," he even snapped at the leader of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, whom he accused of having privileged information from the judiciary and using it politically. "Elections are won with votes, not shortcuts. There will be elections in 2027," Sánchez continued, who also defended Zapatero's legacy. "He did not put us in an illegal war, he advanced rights such as same-sex marriage and ended ETA," he summarized.

The PSOE's defeat in Andalusia is profound. One only needs to look at the evolution of the electoral results from the 1982 regional elections to the present day to realize the magnitude of the disaster. Because it's not just a loss of votes for the party, but there is a clear rightward shift in this community. An underlying current that has been gaining traction since 2018, the first year since the restoration of democracy that the PP came to power hand in hand with Vox and Ciudadanos. The candidate herself, María Jesús Montero, has been self-critical —honesty is always welcome—, as she is aware that she has fallen far short of her objective and that if the left-wing bloc has revived minimally, it has been due to the result of the sovereignist left of Endavant Andalusia.

Sometimes victory tastes like defeat. This is the case for Juanma Moreno Bonilla's PP in Andalusia. From a historical perspective, the result of these elections does nothing more than consolidate conservative hegemony in a territory that had been a stronghold of socialist votes. But politically, for Moreno Bonilla and his Andalusian and moderate path, having to make a deal with Vox is a tragedy because it affects the core of his political discourse. We will have to see how he manages it after having said that the dilemma of these elections was "either an absolute majority or chaos".

A man from Cordoba, Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, president of the Spanish Republic (1931-36), is the author of one of the phrases that have best defined the dual nature of Catalanism. Don Niceto told Francesc Cambó, in the Cortes, that “you cannot be at the same time the Bolívar of Catalonia and the Bismarck of Spain”. A phrase that could also have been applied to Lluís Companys, Miquel Roca or Gabriel Rufián. Being a Catalanist in Madrid implies a contradiction difficult to manage. On the other hand, Andalusianism is an equally intense sentiment but one that combines with Spanishness as well as chamomile and soda water at the Feria de Abril. Because Andalusia (which according to its Statute of Autonomy is a nationality) has an irrefutable, even exuberant, identity, but it is Castilian in origin, and has contributed as much as Castile to the definition of what is Spanish.

77% of citizens demand more regulations on the development of artificial intelligence. This is what emerges from the first Survey on the social perception of digital rights in Spain. The poll was conducted by the La Caixa Foundation, Red.es –the entity associated with the Spanish government dedicated to promoting the digital agenda– and the Hermes Foundation, in collaboration with the University of Barcelona. The document details that the majority of Spaniards want more public oversight of AI and its effects on the economy and society. In fact, more than half of respondents would prefer that the development of applications based on this technology 'slow down'. However, 49% expect it to eventually have "positive effects" for the general population.

The short answer to the headline of this news is no. The long one admits nuances, such as, for example, how much money and infrastructure does the politician or party that wants to manipulate the elections have? To alter the results, there is only one remotely viable option and it is not the one that both Vox and Isabel Díaz Ayuso have been hinting at for days. The way would be to buy enough elected deputies to turn around the electoral results. But, of course, the fraud would be extremely difficult to hide. Can you imagine ten deputies from the PSOE or the PP voting against their candidate?

In a month, on June 9th, the Pope will arrive in Catalonia, where he will spend the night, and will leave the next day. He will arrive at El Prat airport on Tuesday, June 9th, at half past twelve, and from there he will go to Barcelona Cathedral to hold a prayer. The next public stop will be at 8 p.m. at the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium for a massive prayer vigil. According to the organization, the option of it being at Camp Nou was considered, but FC Barcelona's board of directors ruled it out because the logistics involved delaying the stadium's construction by a month. The following day, Wednesday, June 10th, the Pope will visit Brians 1 prison, in Sant Esteve Sesrovires, and from there he will go up to Montserrat, where he will lead a prayer and have lunch with the community of monks. In the afternoon he will return to Barcelona, to the church of Sant Agustí, in the Raval (the Pope is from the Augustinian order). At half past seven, the moment that will be most broadcast worldwide will arrive, the mass at the Sagrada Família, which is a television setting that never ends. At the end of the mass – it will be half past eight in the evening –, with the twilight sun, he will bless from the street the tower of Jesus Christ, crowned weeks ago and which has made the Sagrada Família the tallest temple in the world. The next day, Thursday, June 11th, he will leave for Las Palmas. Pope Robert Prevost will have arrived in Madrid on the 6th and will return to Rome from the Canary Islands on the 12th.This trip is curious because the reason for bringing him to Spain at this time is the Sagrada Família. On June 10th, it will be 100 years since Gaudí's death, and to solemnize the centenary, the Pope has agreed to go to Barcelona to bless the tower of Jesus Christ, which crowns the basilica. Thus, it is from this date and this act that the entire trip is organized. In Madrid, he will go to the Congress of Deputies, where he will deliver a speech in a joint session of the Congress and the Senate. One can imagine the interest Pedro Sánchez's government must have in the Pope giving a political speech, because he is against war, he is attacked by Trump, and he has warned the Spanish bishops not to be instrumentalized by the far-right. The trip has a very marked social component, because Leo XIV will go to a shelter for homeless people in Madrid, he will go to prison, he will go to the Raval in Barcelona, and he will end up in the Canary Islands, the entry point – often fatal – for sub-Saharan immigration into the European Union. It is a trip that Pope Francis could have made if he had not been so ill in the final years of his pontificate.  It is noticeable in the program that, apart from being very packed, it is the typical trip of the Pope to Spain, very controlled so that it is exactly that, a trip to Spain: the kings will accompany him at every step, they will receive him at the Royal Palace in Madrid, he will meet with Pedro Sánchez (a photo that Sánchez is eager to have). Yesterday, the cardinal of Barcelona, Omella, dodged the question when asked about the use of Catalan during the trip. It is the usual thing, the undisguised influence in the Vatican of the Spanish episcopate so that the distinct personality of Catalonia and its language are not perceived as merely regional. I do not believe, however, that Catalan Catholic sectors will stand idly by to counteract this new episode of surveillance of the Pope's words in Catalonia, which, frankly, at this point in history we could do without.And as everything is susceptible of worsening, the “Christian lawyers” appear to ask that the Pope not go to the Lluís Companys Stadium, because under his presidency thousands of religious men and women were killed, and they finish by saying that “it is outrageous that the Pope himself goes to a stadium that honors a murderer”. Needless to say, Companys not only did not have anyone killed, but he tried to save many people, but on July 18, 1936, and in the following months, the president of the Generalitat was absolutely overwhelmed by the armed violence of groups of anarchists and the extreme left, who were the authors of the assassinations. In short, as if the lie were not big enough, the same group asks the Pope to go to the Valley of the Fallen. The Pope's visit, therefore, has political, cultural, social, national, and security components (as the world is) of great importance and symbolism. We will follow it closely.Good morning.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has infiltrated almost every corner of our daily lives, often without us being fully aware of it. A few days ago, the news of a €1,000 fine for a judge for using AI to issue a sentence highlighted the risks of delegating human decisions to algorithms. In this context, the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) has presented a revealing study on AI's vote recommendation. The results are curious: the PSOE systematically leads recommendations in all languages and platforms, followed at a distance by Sumar and Podemos. In contrast, the PP suffers the consequences: it has 96.3% visibility, but only a moderate recommendation of 28.2%, far from the PSOE. Vox, despite appearing often, receives marginal recommendations, below 6%.The study, jointly led by professors Ferran Lalueza and Víctor Gil, has analyzed 1,220 queries on five major platforms (ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Grok, and Perplexity) and in four languages (Catalan, Galician, Basque, and Spanish). "Previous studies have shown that these tools have a great capacity to influence people's voting decisions," says Cristina Aced, a UOC professor and member of the research team, in conversation with ARA. "They are very persuasive when building the foundation of their discourse," she explains.The methodology consisted of formulating 61 questions based on the real concerns of citizens according to the CIS, including housing, unemployment, immigration, and healthcare. To avoid personal biases, the research was not conducted as conventional users, but through an application connector. Aced details that this is done to carry out the study "more objectively", as the system "does not take into account the user's memory or their geographical location". The study also reveals that not all AIs are equally opinionated: ChatGPT and Grok tend to position themselves openly, while Gemini or Copilot are more neutral. According to Aced, this is due to "how they are programmed", although they recall that "in the end it depends a lot on the tool you use and the sources they draw from".

On the afternoon of Friday, May 1st, the Girona-based group Minibús Intergalàctic was performing at the Ateneu Salvadora Catà in Girona. It was an open-air, self-managed concert, held between independence and Palestinian flags, to celebrate the eleventh anniversary of this social center. Two days later, their phones started ringing off the hook. The reason was that Pedro Sánchez, in his weekly TikTok videos of cultural recommendations, recommended them to his followers, more than 800,000: "I've listened to this group I didn't know, from Catalonia, from Girona. I recommend, from their latest album, this song that I loved, which is Per sentir-me ple", said the president of the government.

The plane of the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, had to make an emergency landing and alter its route this Sunday. Specifically, according to sources from Moncloa, "due to an unforeseen technical issue", the plane transporting him to Armenia to attend the European Political Community summit "had to land in Ankara", the capital of Turkey. According to the same sources, the Spanish delegation will spend the night in this city, before resuming the trip to Armenia this Monday. The Airbus A310 in which Sánchez was traveling departed from the Torrejón de Ardoz air base around four in the afternoon with the intention of reaching the capital of Armenia, where this Monday about fifty leaders of the international forum were to meet.

Pedro Sánchez's path to the end of the legislature is getting complicated. In the last few hours, two of the key partners in the investiture majority, Junts and the PNB, have shown signs of distancing themselves from the Spanish government. While the Junts supporters joined the PP and Vox this Tuesday to overthrow the decree extending rents and the investment consortium agreed between the PSOE and ERC, the Basque nationalists suspended a meeting in Moncloa after a controversial message on social media from the PSE against Aitor Esteban. And all of this has served them to demand "respect" from Sánchez and issue him a warning in this morning's control session in Congress: "You will know how you want to reach the electoral call, whether you want company or not".

Yesterday Junts played hard in Congress. It overturned the investment consortium and the rental decree.Regarding the extension of rents, Junts reproached Sumar for having a "systematic allergy to all landlords". And regarding the consortium, it said that Catalonia does not need more "side businesses" but rather to receive the money it is owed.There is no surprise in Junts' position, on either issue. Regarding rents, Junts relies on the fact that, in Catalonia, 90% of the apartment rental market is in the hands of small landlords, and only 10% in investment funds. It seeks to position itself as a defender of the interests of tenants who bear the pressure of the historic lack of public rental supply. However, voting against this extension has a social cost that yesterday Gabriel Rufián solemnized with two gestures: displaying a banknote and pointing out the Junts deputies one by one. Gabriel Rufián: "Do you know what your flag is? Do you know what it is? I have it here. It's small, but it's very effective. And besides, one of the ones you like... Fifty bucks. It could be more. I'll leave it here. This is your flag. The one you share with the PP and with Vox. To screw almost three million people. I want people to know them. They are Josep Maria Cervera, Josep Pagès, Pilar Calvo, Isidre Gavín, Marta Madrenas, Josep Maria Cruset and Miriam Nogueras”.

The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, will attend the annual meeting of the Cercle d'Economia to be held from June 1 to 3 in Barcelona, the first meeting with Teresa Garcia-Milà as president of the institution. This year the central theme will be Europe's strategic autonomy in the context of the war in the Middle East, which adds to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the difficult relations of the Old Continent with the administration of Donald Trump in the United States.

More than forty years have passed since the referendum on Spain's membership in NATO. The vote took place on March 12, 1986, when the former mayor of Barcelona, Narcís Serra (PSC), was Minister of Defense. In these last four decades, Spanish society has changed a lot regarding its knowledge of foreign policy and defense matters, and the majority perceptions about the commitments that membership in the Western world implies. It would now make no sense to reconsider the country's role in its contribution in this area.

Ursula von der Leyen took only a few hours to slam the door on the request by Pedro Sánchez and Giorgia Meloni to suspend fiscal rules to confront the energy crisis derived from the war in the Middle East. The President of the European Commission was not at all ambiguous and emphatically dismissed the request from the Spanish and Italian leaders, who had also asked her —unsuccessfully— to apply an additional tax on the extraordinary profits that energy companies are making from the rising cost of fossil fuels. "The clause [to suspend fiscal rules] can only be activated in case of a severe economic recession in the eurozone or the European Union as a whole. Fortunately, this is not the situation," Von der Leyen responded at a press conference, although she omitted that the community bloc has applied exceptions with the deficit cap to finance the great European rearmament.

The relations between the PSOE and Junts have not been going well for some time —they avoid negotiation since the Junts considered the investiture agreement broken—, but this Wednesday the spokesperson for Carles Puigdemont's party in Congress, Miriam Nogueras, has raised the tone against the Spanish president. To the point of reproaching him that he has been "governing without a majority" in the Spanish chamber for "too long" and that he makes no decisions: "What argument does he have left not to call elections?"

In an era when international politics is at the forefront, Spanish leaders seek godfathers abroad to strengthen themselves internally and try to win the electoral game. The Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, is the one who has the most blatant strategy in this regard, by establishing himself as one of the leaders of the world left this weekend in Barcelona, but also the rest of the political spaces go beyond borders to seek references. These days, the PP and Vox have made a demonstration with the reception of María Corina Machado – whom they use to attack the Spanish government – and a few days ago it was Viktor Orbán's defeat in Hungary that marked Spanish politics.

After the investigating judge Juan Carlos Peinado has closed the investigation of the case and has left Begoña Gómez one step away from trial, it is the turn of the accusers to request the sentence. This is what the ultra platform Hazte Oír has done this Monday, which acts as a popular accuser in the proceedings along with Manos Limpias, and demands 24 years in prison for crimes of embezzlement, influence peddling, business corruption, and misappropriation. This is evident from a document to which ARA has had access and which the lawyer for Hazte Oir has presented to the court. Precisely because of the high request for a custodial sentence, it asks for the passport of Pedro Sánchez's wife to be withdrawn due to the risk of flight.

Aware of his parliamentary weakness, Pedro Sánchez and the PSOE have decided to make an all-or-nothing bet to turn the Spanish president into a progressive benchmark, both internally and internationally. For now, it's working for them, also in the State: fewer and fewer people doubt that he can complete the legislature, and the shells with which the PP thought to break his waterline (starting with the alleged judicial scandals relating to his wife, his brother, and even his late father-in-law) have rather remained wet gunpowder.Within the failed ammunition, there are also reproaches against the new regularization of immigrants, which has come into effect with the last-minute incorporation, by the Spanish government, of the criminal record certificate requirement. Requesting a criminal record certificate from people who in many cases will find it difficult to obtain it (because in their countries of origin, often impoverished and damaged by war, corruption and/or poverty, they will not be issued it) is equivalent to short-circuiting the regularization process with an administrative hurdle that, for many, may be insurmountable. This should have forced a review of the opposition's arguments against this measure, but it has not been the case: the right-wing, extreme and not-so-extreme, have once again spun the rosary of immigration as a source of crime and recidivism. Feijóo, even, resorted to the old fallacy of immigrant rapists.In our homeland, in the Catalan Countries, the reaction of again presenting immigration as a tool for Hispanization and the substitution or elimination of Catalan (or Mallorcan, or Valencian) identity, in addition to a solid imbecility, is an expression of weakness that clearly goes against the ability of Catalanism and separatism to gain supporters among newcomers. You are an immigrant arriving in the country, or who is born and grows up there, and within the political landscape you see some who accuse you of being a colon sent by someone with the purpose of liquidating the country, language, and culture: you already know who you will never want to go anywhere with.While this was happening, the Spanish president undertook a Chinese tour in which he met directly with Xi Jinping, and on his return he landed in Barcelona to host an international progressive summit (or an anti-Trump summit, as it has also been called) which obviously goes against Catalan independence and at the same time further strengthens Sánchez's role as a left-wing benchmark. It remains to be seen what content all this has (content means consequences in the form of policies) and if it has any electoral effect (traditionally, the impact of the international agenda on election results is low), but what cannot be said of Sánchez is that he is standing idly by. On the other hand, mans plegades is an expression that can be used to describe political options based on catastrophism, resentment, and discontent. For whatever reason, those who present themselves as losers do not usually generate enthusiasm.