"There are many international actors who are interested in weakening Europe, which is the last bastion of liberal democracy". This warning from the former Italian Minister of Defence between 2014 and 2017, Roberta Pinotti, hovered over the room at the Sant Pau Modernista Precinct where 200 people invited by ARA attended the Enfoquem conference to analyse the state of European security. The diagnosis that Pinotti drew is very clear: Europe is a kind of garden in a wild world that has suddenly been left without its guardian and now has to run to protect itself. It must wake up. The most explicit threat is the Russian one, but there are many more.

The riots in Barcelona are fully entering the campaign, and the vast majority of parties are using the unrest to attack their political rivals. The harshest has been the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who has linked the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, to what he considers to be a “barbarity.” “How dare they pontificate about peace in the world in the morning and not guarantee it in their own country at night? Stop giving lessons, if you have dynamited it in Spain,” the popular leader said at a rally in Salamanca, from where he also accused the PSOE of “minimizing” and “justifying” the riots. “Sánchez wants to see the fire grow,” he added.

Brussels has opened an investigation into Booking, which allegedly failed to combat fraudulent ads, identity theft scams, and published featured ads without labeling them as advertising. The European Commission believes there are indications that the actions of the tourist accommodation platform constitute breaches of the Digital Services Act.

Andorra takes another step to get closer to the European Union. The head of the Andorran government, Xavier Espot, has celebrated the start of a "new stage" after sealing the association agreement with Brussels this Monday, which should allow the principality to integrate into the bloc's market.

New setback for the European Union's climate goals. The continent's economic engines, France and Germany, reached an agreement this Friday to soften the climate requirements for the automotive sector and maintain the manufacturing of combustion vehicles beyond 2035. This was announced by the French government in a statement, in which it details that the pact also includes tools to strengthen production conditions within Europe. This proposal has been a major demand from European manufacturers, who are currently working hastily to electrify in the face of strong Chinese competition.

The Twenty-seven are concerned about the trade deficit they have with China, which they have estimated at 1 billion euros per day. Until now, the European Union, which accuses Beijing of unfair competition practices by subsidizing its industries, had focused on the automotive industry with instruments to reduce this trade imbalance. Now the European Commission is studying developing these trade instruments to impose them in other sectors, such as chemicals and machinery, and potentially pharmaceutical products. Member states, meeting in Brussels at a leaders' summit, have urged community leaders to study imports in these sectors to assess taking measures, according to diplomatic sources who informed this newspaper.

Salvador Illa has returned to Brussels. He maintains a busy international agenda and this week will be the fourth time that, as president of the Generalitat, he travels to the Belgian capital. The two most notable meetings he is expected to hold on Wednesday will be with the President of the European Council, António Costa, and the Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition, Teresa Ribera, according to sources from the Catalan executive.

It is the last opportunity to negotiate. Brussels already has ready trade defense measures in case China does not agree to limit its exports to Europe and reduce the trade deficit, which the European Commission estimates at 1 billion euros per day. European Commissioner for Trade, Maroš Šefčovič, meets this Thursday in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao, who is to present his counter-proposal.

The European Union's defense ministers met this Monday with a question on the table: how can a coordinated response be provided to the hybrid warfare that Russia is posing as part of its strategy to prevent European partners from continuing to assist Ukraine in its war effort? The meeting coincided, by the way, with a strong Russian attack on the center of Kyiv that had nothing hybrid about it, but rather showed the horror of war in all its dimensions: bombed buildings, civilian victims and, what is worse, the feeling that this is just the beginning.

The European Union has announced a new trade agreement with the Philippines. Negotiators from the European Commission and the Philippine government have closed a "substantial agreement" to facilitate trade between the two territories, as explained this Tuesday by the European Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security, Maros Sefcovic.

New order are very strong words, but they have been here for days now. They were also used by the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, when he took to the podium of the European Parliament to speak about the new alliance between Canada and the EU. New order means, in short, turning the page on what was designed after the Second World War and giving way to something new. The villain is no longer Germany, and the old allies are no longer allies. It is necessary to know, therefore, who the new enemies are and who the new allies are for the coming decades. And, above all, why. Enemies must be chosen both internally (are the new nationalist waves one? Or are they just a symptom of the system's failure, which needs to be perfected?) and externally (two blocs: the United States against the BRICS). Carney, who had already spoken months ago in Davos about the need to build "variable geometry" coalitions between middle powers, has found a natural partner in the European Union. And in fact the EU, for the first time in decades, has something it was missing to cohere: a clear external enemy. Or more than one, rather. Europe has been trying to atone for Nazism since 1945. It was invited to shape a new order that has worked quite well for almost 80 years, but it has always been heavily conditioned by the United States, especially under the pretext of the Cold War. Now Russia is no longer communist, and therefore could have been a European ally, but it has preferred to embrace China (in a quite incomprehensible way, since the pre-Soviet culture and traditional values are liberal and Western: it is only understood, therefore, as a response to the humiliation suffered after the fall of the Wall). We are no longer talking about opposing social systems, but about clashing geopolitical influence blocs: a race to see who advances most in AI, to reach Mars, or to develop the latest and most sophisticated lethal weapon. In this race, our old American "big brother" is no longer coming to save or protect us. In fact, the old American ally against the Nazis now seems the most authoritarian of all.

If you have plastic food containers, do not put them in the microwave and, in general, try to prevent them from heating up. Some, the majority, are endocrine disruptors. That is to say, despite being petroleum-derived products, they simulate hormonal functioning that alters health in very diverse ways. Also endocrine disruptors are the price labels placed on trays of fresh or cooked supermarket products. Experts advise that we do not touch them and that we quickly avoid their contact with food. The plastic that wraps these trays can also be toxic. And shampoo, sunscreen, or synthetic clothing that repels water. Scientists have identified a thousand toxic elements that can function as endocrine disruptors, and which in some cases penetrate the human body and can stay there for even years. It is not something immediate. There is no clear cause-effect relationship, and other factors contribute to it, but it is becoming clearer, after hundreds of scientific studies, that constant exposure to this cocktail of toxins ends up having consequences. It has been linked, for example, to early puberty, obesity, diabetes, and infertility problems. And there are starting to be indications that link them to some types of hormonal cancer, such as prostate or breast cancer. They are especially dangerous for pregnant women, children, and adolescents.

Together is in fashion. Not the party, but the thing. Together we are stronger. Not the party, but the alliances. In general, not the Catalan one. We have just seen this with the will to broaden the Canadian-European base and we have recently seen it with the common front that Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have decided to form to pressure Westminster. Here, the attempts made to pressure the Spanish government and unify the heterogeneous pro-independence bloc turned out mediocrely. I am an optimist of adjectives. But it is also true that if everyone had gone their own way, the 'gigaphoto' would not have been a dream come true (even though it was later seen that everyone was going their own way and that the 'gigaphoto' was not all that). "The people united will never be defeated", the Chileans shouted in the seventies. Literally, we can say that the phrase is not true. Especially because of the “jamás”. It was proven in Chile and it has been proven many other times. But everything depends on what we understand by victory. The October First referendum (the word referendum, by the way, has suspiciously gone out of fashion) was the victory of a united people and, at the same time, it was the beginning of the defeat of the independence movement. One can think that the people were defeated or, on the contrary, that together we achieved an unthinkable milestone. What we think will depend a little bit on the day. Like knee pain.

Hopefully, the history books of the future will record the date of this Thursday, September 17, 2026, as the day the foundation stone was laid for the alliance between the European Union and Canada. The excellent reception of the speech by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney before the European Parliament invites optimism, as does the angry reaction of Donald Trump, who has once again threatened trade reprisals. The fact is that Trump's expansionist policy, which has stated that he wants to incorporate Canada and Greenland into the United States, mixed with his neighborhood bully style and catastrophic decisions for the global economy like the war in Iran, is pushing all of Washington's former partners to seek alternative alliances.

Russia is increasing pressure on Eastern European countries with a mix of hybrid warfare and airspace violations as part of its military strategy to weaken aid from NATO and EU partners to Ukraine. The reality is that, almost five years after the invasion, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, knows that his only chance of winning the war is to cut off this aid. How? By deepening European divisions, intimidating the population of border countries, and, above all, placing his far-right pawns at the head of as many European countries as possible. To achieve all these objectives, he is deploying a whole series of actions of which we have had quite a few examples in recent days.

Judge Manuel Marchena used the concept of environmental violence for the first time against four of the protesters who surrounded Parliament in 2011 to try to obstruct the passage of deputies when the budgets consolidating the cuts were to be approved. None of them committed a violent act, but they were sentenced to three years in prison for the mere fact of attending a demonstration in which crimes could have been committed. Once the foundations were laid, Marchena himself used "environmental violence" to justify the sentence against the leaders of the Procés.

The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, and the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, have met with the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Kyiv. Illa conveyed to him his "commitment" and "solidarity" on behalf of Catalonia, and "showed his support" in the war against the Russian invasion, Ukraine's potential future accession to the European Union, and the potential use of frozen Russian assets located within EU territory for the reconstruction of his country. "It has been a very fruitful meeting in which we were able to express not only the desire to cooperate, but also the desire to learn from a country that has shown a resilience that I believe must be highly valued," the Catalan leader remarked.

The European Union repeats like a mantra that Morocco is a reliable partner and, despite growing suspicions about Rabat's involvement in the migration crisis in Ceuta, it has treaded carefully when it comes to making any kind of statement that could anger the Moroccan regime. Community sources avoid reacting to the possible link between the Mohamed VI regime and the massive entry of immigrants into the autonomous city and limit themselves to responding that it is "an internal affair" that must be clarified by the Spanish authorities.

If you want to better understand the world we have started living in for the past few months, there are a couple of news items of the day that are very helpful.The day before yesterday, Pedro Sánchez stated that Morocco did not instigate the massive entry of people into Ceuta, that it had been the work of Russia and Israel, who had spread through the networks in Morocco that Spain was waiting for workers with open arms, so to speak. Putin himself has denied that Russia had anything to do with it, and the Israeli government has also denied it. But this morning, the digital newspaper El Español published that the Spanish police have informed the judge that the massive entry into Ceuta was guided by Moroccan gendarmes under the orders of plainclothes agents with the aim of collapsing the border control system and eliminating Spain's response capacity.

The no prevailed in Iceland's referendum on resuming accession negotiations with the European Union by a clear margin: 52.8% versus 47.2%. Turnout was extremely high: 82.5%. The result is a blow to the community project, which wanted to incorporate a high-income country after the setback of Brexit, to strengthen itself internally and also against external threats represented by the United States, Russia, and China. For this reason, Brussels had shown some flexibility on the thorniest issues that concerned Reykjavík, especially fishing quotas. Far-right, Eurosceptic leaders have not missed the opportunity to celebrate it.