Congress has decided to definitively withdraw the press accreditation of ultra agitator Vito Quiles. The bureau of the lower house took this decision after having already decided to suspend him provisionally in May and withdrawing it for three months. This Tuesday, the progressive majority of the Congress bureau, with the votes of the representatives of the PSOE and Sumar, decided to definitively withdraw his accreditation after analyzing the proposal from the legal counsel. Specifically, three very serious offenses were taken into account: two "obstructions of press conferences" and the "dissemination on social media of images obtained by violating the house's rules," parliamentary sources note. The PP abstained from voting on the bureau's decision.

The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, confirmed this Wednesday that they will open a file for an "alleged very serious or serious misconduct" against the police officers who, on August 23rd, assaulted a minor, a Barça club member, in the vicinity of the Elche stadium. "The action that was carried out is in no way justified, regardless of the fact that the person was carrying a symbol that is absolutely legitimate in a state of law," replied Marlaska to Junts per Catalunya MP Marta Madrenas during the control session of the Spanish government in Congress. In the video distributed through social media, the agents can be seen striking the minor, who ends up on the ground, after taking an estelada from him.

Pedro Sánchez appeared this morning in Congress and began by making a profession of Spanish identity: he recalled that the lions at the door of Congress were sculpted with bronze cast from cannons captured in Morocco in the 19th century and that Ceuta and Melilla will be Spanish “until the end of time”.He has built a narrative about the government's response, in fact, he has flooded the chamber with figures, data, days, and hours, a flood that he ended up summarizing in one figure: 72 hours after the mass entry, more than 90% of the people who entered, 63,000 people, had already returned to Morocco. And that this had been done in collaboration with Morocco. And that there was no police report warning of what was about to come:And he topped it off: he has ordered the publication of all police documents regarding prevention. He said that the government has nothing to hide.It is likely that Sánchez's explanations will not be of much use, politically. Because they arrive late, very late, weeks late, during which he has been on vacation. And because Ceuta is still not okay. And because the police report that El Español published yesterday points to Morocco, due to the passivity of the Moroccan police, and leaves Minister Marlaska exposed. Passivity that we all saw. Does the minister not control his police? Does he not have information from the police? Ceuta may be the end of Sánchez's escapade. Our journalist in Madrid, Núria Orriols, says so:“It will be difficult for him to get out of this, this time, Pedro Sánchez”.And because apart from the right and the far-right, which have long wanted him out of government and in prison, the mismanagement of Ceuta has left those who are horrified by the likely prospect of a PP and Vox government without arguments.Yesterday's demonstrations in the evening were about three things: in favor of Ceuta, against Sánchez, and making an apology for the far-right. All three things simultaneously. In what proportions? Ceuta first, yes, but it was the motive that legitimized and justified a protest. Without losing sight of the fact that when we say Ceuta we are talking about two things: the massive entry that the people of the city have been suffering for a month and the disastrous management of the Spanish government. It is a complicated panorama for Pedro Sánchez that we will see what repercussions it may end up having, but it is undoubtedly the biggest dent in the bodywork of a government that has already taken quite a few hits.Good morning.

Between May 17 and 18, 2021, 10,000 people entered Ceuta from Morocco in the last major migration crisis—up to the present—in the autonomous city. Coinciding with those dates, the mobile phone of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, was infected with the Pegasus spyware. So were those of the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles; the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska; and the Minister of Agriculture and former Spanish ambassador to Morocco, Luis Planas. Who spied on them? As with the mass entry this summer in Ceuta, the Spanish government claims it has no certainty, but from the first minute, internal investigations (and common sense) have pointed to the Moroccan secret services. This Thursday, from Congress, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, took the opportunity to recall it: "What document or clue was on your phone for you to behave this way? Why are you afraid of Morocco? What does Morocco know about you?".

The resumption of parliamentary activity in Congress, in September, will have as one of its pending tasks to unblock the approval of the conclusions on the attacks of August 17 in Barcelona and Cambrils. Two and a half years after the investigation commission on 17-A was established, the parliamentary groups have already drafted their final proposals, but have not yet submitted them for a vote. The differences between the parties of the plurinational majority, which have been noted in the registered documents and during the sessions, have led them to negotiate in an attempt to approve a consensual text. For now, according to various parliamentary sources consulted by ARA, there is no definitive agreement, although the parties have agreed to try again after the holidays. The main obstacle is for PSOE and Junts to agree, as they are the ones with the most opposed positions.

August arrives. Cities empty, the frantic pace fades, the heat suffocates the asphalt and citizens pack their bags for the beach or seek the cool refuge of the mountains. It is time to hang the "Closed for holidays" sign on businesses and disconnect from routine. But what happens meanwhile with the institutions?

Political debate often strains the seams of institutional decorum and courtesy in political forums. This Tuesday, the Commission on the Status of Deputies accepted sanctioning the comments of the leader of Aliança Catalana with a minor offense, Sílvia Orriols, about Najat Driouech, an ERC deputy, whom she accused of making "a show of Islamic misogyny" for wearing a veil.

There is a rather comical inertia in journalism: when you need to inflate the dog on any topic you've already gone over a thousand times, bring in a non-verbal communication expert to finish the job. It's very useful. It gives an appearance of depth, of analytical insight loaded with superpowers, to explain what context and logic have already made obvious.The Antena 3 noticias team, in their voracious compulsion to destroy Pedro Sánchez, invited a professional expert on this matter to interpret his emotional and psychological state during the control session in Congress. Initially, he compared his image to that of a year ago in the same situation and highlighted that he was not wearing a tie, seeking a more informal and approachable appearance. Impressive. It is of admirable sagacity. Next, he pointed out that the Spanish president had started “quite nervously” because he was touching the papers with his notes on the speaker's podium. The newscast then created a magnifying effect on Sánchez's hand, so that those fingers automatically became suspects of any evil, even though barely any relevant movement was appreciated. To summarize, the specialist diagnosed that Sánchez was in a situation that reflected stress. It does not escape any minimally informed citizen that in recent months he must have been quite stressed.They also chose a fleeting moment when Yolanda Díaz was seen sitting on the bench consulting some papers. They decontextualized the image and enlarged it so much that it lost its sharpness. The specialist concluded that she “was focused on something else” and this meant that she was thinking: “I expect what is happening here”. Two seconds extracted from a long control session serve to demonstrate that Díaz, after more than five years as vice-president, it is quite logical that she knows the ropes in these sessions. The great analysis came at the time of deciphering Feijóo's attitude. From Antena 3, we would have been surprised by another conclusion. They extracted an image of an instant in which the PP leader moved his forearms up and down, to reinforce a statement. Just for that, for this well-chosen second, he sentenced that this way of addressing his target demonstrated "conviction and security". Of course, quite the opposite of Pedro Sánchez's nerves and stress. The hero of Congress, Feijóo. When Gabriel Rufián asked the Spanish president to look him in the eyes and Sánchez raised his gaze to look at him, the expert concluded: "Pedro Sánchez's reaction is one of freezing." It is difficult to imagine what else he could have done besides looking at him. And this, the expert used to reiterate the idea of touching papers to reduce stress.The funniest thing about it all is that the same communication expert seemed to have rehearsed his own gestures to convey security and authority in the matter. The elementary catalog on how to move your head, point your finger, and move your arms to have credibility on television. And he did it in such a staged way that the result was quite the opposite.

The People's Party of Catalonia is also approaching the far-right and hardening its discourse on immigration. The national PP has done so in recent months, and now the Catalan Populars are reproducing it in their political paper, which the party must approve at its 16th congress on June 27 – it is the text that will mark the strategic line of the party in the coming years. Under the premise that "those who come to commit crimes must know that they have no place in our society," the Populars demand "the immediate and effective execution of expulsion orders for any foreigner in an irregular situation who commits a crime," thus focusing on the fight against repeat offending.

Pope Leo XIV has not yet set foot in Catalonia and we are already saturated with religious events thanks to an extraordinarily devout television. TVE's La 1 is assuming the broadcast of all ceremonies with unprecedented faith and joy. To top it off, in some television slots (for example, Monday afternoon), it offered triple coverage: La 1, La 2, and the 24h channel in unison offering the same religious content.Beyond the bows and kisses on the hand at the airport, of all the experts praising the Pope with devotion and of the teenagers singing mass songs in front of the public TV microphone, the profile of the parishioner that has been shown to us in the mass events in Madrid stands out. The same way of dressing, with shared color tones, a certain social class, a very similar family style, and medals hanging from the neck that seem mass-produced. In this era of religious fervor that we have to endure and that transcends the Church itself, television shows us a believer of a certain homogeneity in appearance and conduct that distorts the idea of faith and confuses it with status and an ideological temperament.With the Pope's visit to the Congress of Deputies, television showed us another type of uniformity that is very unusual in the broadcasts that normally reach us from there. In recent years, in the hemicycle we have seen shouts, grimaces, aggressive confrontations, contempt, and unpleasant gesticulations that the deputies directed at each other. On Monday morning, beyond the red carpet and the pomp to receive the Vatican authority, in the seat of legislative power we discovered docile and quiet deputies lining up to greet the pontiff. In the hemicycle, all together in their seats, very elegant and polite. Full to the brim, even to the visitors' balconies. In some programs, they even revealed that the authorities had only spent two minutes in the stands to go through the motions. All attentive to the Pope's words and, to conclude the speech, La 1 emphasized that the seven minutes of applause the deputies had dedicated to him were a record for a parliamentary ovation. In times of polarization and maximum political tension, it turns out that the audience, from their homes, observes that the one who holds conciliation power in the State, believe it or not, is the Church. A Church that does not precisely have very democratic values. Not only because of its convictions regarding abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, or equality between men and women, but also because it is an institution that has inflicted much pain with sexual abuse and has remained silent about its crimes. What message does a Pope give to citizens, giving a sermon from the presidential lectern of Congress with all the deputies acting as obedient altar boys? An ultraconservative one, with the Church and faith as the only possible unifier, which does not correspond to that of a non-confessional state nor to the values of a large part of the citizenry.

At eight in the morning, twenty PP deputies were already queuing to enter the Congress of Deputies. On days when there is a joint session with the Senate, the hemicycle becomes small and it is difficult to fit. And this Monday, which was a historic day in Madrid, some were afraid of not finding a seat. The Pope's visit is an exceptional mobilization of resources and organization, even for those accustomed to dealing with state and international authorities. To give the reader an idea: while Leo XIV arrived at 10:30 at the Carrera de San Jerónimo, Congress opened its doors at 7:30 so that both parliamentarians and journalists could enter and have the necessary credentials (to reach today, considerable paperwork has been required). In addition, although the press normally moves up and down with some freedom around the hemicycle and the courtyard of Congress, this Monday the place to follow the event had to be chosen: the courtyard to see the arrival accompanied by music; the tribune inside the hemicycle or from the usual press facilities. What's more: at the end of the event, the deputies had to wait a few minutes inside the plenary until the Pope's entourage dispersed and they could circulate normally.

For the first time in history, the Pope has delivered a speech to Congress. In a hemicycle dressed in gala for the occasion and on a visit that he wanted to serve as a "gesture of closeness" towards Spain, Leo XIV has once again fully entered the Spanish political debate to fundamentally amend the postulates of the far-right regarding immigration. He has once again referred to the "tragic migratory drama" and has reproached the national priority that the PP and Vox have recently agreed upon in the autonomous communities. "Where a person is discriminated against because of their national, ethnic, religious or linguistic origin, the universal principle of the equal dignity of all human beings is seriously violated," he proclaimed. "The situation of migrants and refugees demands a response that looks at people," he added. Likewise, he has put forward a "double demand for social justice" with immigrants: they must be offered "safe and legal pathways," a "respectful welcome," and "real opportunities for integration," and, in parallel, the "right to stay in their own land" must be promoted by working to ensure that "no one has to leave their home." Precisely on Thursday, the Pope will travel to the Canary Islands, which is the final destination of the most dangerous migratory route in Europe.

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 Ministry of Finance has on the table a bill proposed by non-profit foundations that manage social housing, such as Habitat3 or Provivienda. The entities – grouped under the ALIVAS umbrella – want to create a new legal figure with the aim of expanding this segment of the residential market in Spain, the "social housing providers". According to sources from the Spanish government, they explain to ARA, the intention is for the law to reach Congress "as soon as possible", and for the socialist group to process it because the process is "faster" and has "fewer procedures" if done through parties.

The Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs appeared urgently this Thursday in Congress to report on the actions taken to demand the immediate release of the Palestinian-Catalan citizen Saif Abukeshek, who was detained by Israel in international waters and is currently held by an Israeli court. "He is a European citizen," he reaffirmed in his first statement, and once again demanded his immediate release. Last week, Israel intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla en route to Gaza to provide humanitarian aid and, although it released most of the activists, it is holding Abukeshek and the Brazilian Thiago Ávila, accused of terrorism. As a protest, Saif Abukeshek is on a hunger and thirst strike. In his statement, Albares promised to increase all diplomatic pressure for his release, but also referred to the situation in Iran, demanding that they also release the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi. Albares' position was not supported by the PP, which clashed, once again, with the Spanish government.

When Gabriel Rufián takes out a 50 “bucks” bill and reads the names of the seven Junts deputies from the podium of Congress, is he thinking about himself and the thousands of likes he will get on social media, or is he thinking about tenants and Esquerra voters? Because it is as evident that he felt satisfied as it is that this superb performance is the underlining used by those who believe that voters don't realize much and need someone to draw them a picture with fluorescent markers and many arrows, because today nobody listens to arguments anymore and people no longer read newspapers. Does he think they don't know that Junts voted against the rent extension and that, just in case, a public shaming was necessary?

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”.

In the Congress, everyone points out that, more and more, it seems the lions aren't just staying at the door. Last Tuesday, the one who showed his claws was José María Sánchez García, a VOX deputy since 2019, who, in the middle of a debate to document the burning of books during Francoism, and after being expelled from the session, climbed onto the table and confronted the presidency of the Congress. "The only thing I was thinking was where the slap would come from", admitted hours later the socialist Alfonso Rodríguez Gómez de Celis, who at that moment was chairing the plenary session in place of Francina Armengol.

The journalist and political scientist Estefania Molina (Igualada, 1991) speaks to ARA after publishing Els fills dels boomers (Destino), in which she points out the baby boom generation as the only leg supporting the system: it acts as a plaster to prevent social unrest and, at the same time, prevents, she believes, political reform. A commentator in media such as La Ser or El País, she admits that with this book she wanted to go beyond analysis and take sides.

It was no longer decisive, but their vote was one of the last unknowns in the vote on the decree with tax cuts for the Iran war. The PP plans to abstain, according to popular sources. However, Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party still leaves the door open to a vote in favor if there is a last-minute turn by the Spanish government. What should happen? That Pedro Sánchez's executive commits during the debate, which will take place this Thursday, to deflating personal income tax. For the PP, the package of measures approved last Friday by the Council of Ministers is still "insufficient". However, they will not vote against it because it "includes part of its proposal for tax cuts".