During the peak years of the Process, the Assemblea Nacional Catalana (ANC) was able to bring millions of people to the streets and became a decisive player in setting the roadmap for the pro-independence governments. The paralysis of the Process, however, has affected it like the rest of the pro-independence entities and formations that worked to make the 1-O referendum possible. This is demonstrated by the number of candidacies submitted to the ANC leadership. For the first time,the number of candidates for the national secretariat is lower than the number of available positions. Thus, 64 aspirants have been presented to occupy the 77 positions that will form the entity's leadership, as established by the statutes. This is the lowest figure in its history.

Lluís Llach's journey to become president of the ANC was very difficult. In the most tumultuous assembly in its history, the singer-songwriter It took two full houses to take the throne of the organization In a situation that had never occurred before and that highlighted the internal division, Llach, while awaiting confirmation of whether he will run for reelection, has, during his two years in office, quelled dissent and worked tirelessly to revive the independence movement, which he has admitted is in a state of "absolute depression."

The commuter rail system is not working. The delays of between 20 and 60 minutes recorded on the lines this Saturday, coinciding with the day of demonstrations called in Barcelona, ​​are a prime example. However, after weeks of rail chaos, the expectations generated by the demonstrations have not been fully met. In the morning, the pro-independence demonstration brought together some 8,000 people in the center of Barcelona, ​​according to the Guardia Urbana (Barcelona's municipal police), along a route that made it clear it was not just a protest about the trains (between the Rafael Casanova monument and Plaça Sant Jaume). In the afternoon, the Barcelona police estimated the number of demonstrators, called by commuter rail user groups, at 3,000. Much of the indignation of the users, which is evident day after day in stations across the country, has remained at home. The organizers, who were unable to coordinate a single, unified demonstration, have inflated their figures, estimating 30,000 protesters in the morning and 40,000 in the afternoon. The Catalan government reacted to the mobilizations from Tremp, where the Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau, guaranteed that they would "take the bull by the horns" and work to "fix once and for all" the commuter rail service in Catalonia. "This isn't about trains, it's about dignity and our future, and that of our nation." The independence movement is looking for opportunities to regain the strength it has been losing since the fall of 2017, and the rail chaos of recent weeks has opened one. The president of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), Lluís Llach, made no secret of the fact that the commuter rail service "disaster" is merely the tip of the iceberg of a demand that extends far beyond infrastructure. The chants this morning, in fact, were primarily focused on independence and criticism of Spain. Like the 2007 demonstration, this Saturday's protest used rail transport as its central theme, but the core slogan was "independence." The difference compared to 19 years ago was the number of demonstrators: back then, the Barcelona City Police estimated the attendance at 200,000, while the organizers, the Platform for the Right to Decide, put the figure at 700,000. At the end of the march, in front of the Palau de la Generalitat, Llach described Salvador Illa's government as "collaborative" and urged pro-independence parties to overthrow the socialist governments, both in Catalonia and in Spain, to force elections "of a plebiscite nature."

Adrià Ramírez (Taradell, 1987) is the president of Public Transport Promotion (PTP), one of the user associations leading Saturday afternoon's demonstration against the management of the commuter rail service. The PTP, which is not affiliated with any political party, has been acting as a lobbying group for years within the rail sector and the public administration. "I encourage all train users to approach their nearest platform: that's often how things start to move," he says.

It's no surprise that Lluís Llach dislikes Aliança Catalana. The singer-songwriter and president of the ANC takes every opportunity to make this clear: this Wednesday, he was interviewed on La 2, where he stated that the party led by Sílvia Orriols is nothing more than "a creation to block the independence movement." With Aliança Catalana in the equation, a pro-independence majority in the Catalan Parliament becomes more complicated, because neither ERC, nor the CUP, nor Junts are willing to form a coalition. "There are many people who might be interested in Aliança," he continued. Besides avoiding parliamentary alliances, Llach also cited the polls. "Everything Aliança gains either comes from Vox or Junts, and damaging Junts is very profitable," he emphasized, referring to the political, economic, and media elites of the Spanish state—and of Catalonia, he added—who, in his opinion, are working to stifle the independence movement. Llach's interpretation is very similar to that of other political leaders: the president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, has even gone so far as to suggest that Aliança Catalana It could be a creation of the Spanish secret services.

For ten years, the pro-independence movement has mourned the loss of Muriel Casals, the economist and activist who, as head of Òmnium Cultural, became one of the symbols of the independence process. Casals did not live to see the October 1st referendum because died more than a year earlier He died in an accident while riding a bicycle, but his leadership was key in the events that preceded it, from the November 9th referendum to the Junts pel Sí list, of which he was a member. Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of his death, his legacy was celebrated this Tuesday in a tribute organized by the organization he led between 2010 and 2015. The event was attended by the activist's family and numerous politicians, including the Speaker of the Catalan Parliament, Josep Rull, former presidents Quim Torra and Juli Fernàndez (ERC deputy), and the president of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), Lluís Llach. "He was able to see further," said the president of the pro-independence organization, Xavier Antich, who emphasized "the importance of hope," as Casals conveyed, even now "at a time when everything seems to point to the opposite." "Muriel taught us that the only future we have as a people is the one we are capable of building together, based on the diversity that unites us," she declared.

There has been no agreement, and ultimately there will be two demonstrations over the commuter rail chaos. The Catalan National Assembly (ANC) accuses the Network of Train Users' Platforms of Catalonia of staging a counter-protest with an alternative march, but the coordinating body downplays the fact that both demonstrations are on the same day and believes that it, not the pro-independence movement, should lead the mobilization. "We told them we were open to collaborating and supporting their demonstration as long as they didn't call for it on the same day," denounced ANC President Lluís Llach on Friday.

The commuter rail chaos will not turn into a large, unified demonstration like the one in 2007. Back then, thousands of people—200,000 according to the police and 700,000 according to the organizers—responded to the call of the Platform for the Right to Decide (PDD) and brought the center of Barcelona to a standstill to protest the arrival of the AVE high-speed train. The Network of Train User Platforms of Catalonia, which includes about ten organizations, announced this Tuesday that it is calling a demonstration on Saturday, February 7, at 5:00 p.m. In doing so, the network is distancing itself from the march called by the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) for the same day at noon. In a conversation with ARA, the platform's spokesperson, Adrià Ramírez, explained that they don't want the march to be pro-independence, but rather to focus on railway issues: "The demonstration should be sector-specific, and the ANC links trains with independence." The representative of the organizations emphasized the diverse range of users to underscore the need for the demonstration not to be pro-sovereignty: "We have people with different perspectives, and we want it to be inclusive." In fact, the Network of Train User Platforms of Catalonia asserts that they spoke with the leadership of the Assemblea before they called the demonstration to inform them that they had planned to organize one, but that the ANC didn't want to wait. "We respect their decision, but before they called it, we told them to wait," says Ramírez, who regrets that they couldn't reach an agreement.

Argentona has a street with two names. It's not that the street changes name because of its length. Passeig de la República has the exact same location as Passeig del Baró de Viver. Needless to say, this causes headaches for delivery drivers who have to deliver packages to residents who live there. But this isn't the reason that led the Heritage Councilor to eliminate this duplication, a move that has opened a can of worms for the Maresme municipality.

The director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), Esperanza Casteleiro, confirmed this Monday in a Barcelona court that the Supreme Court authorized Spain's intelligence services to spy on former Catalan National Assembly (ANC) presidents Jordi Sánchez and Elisenda Paluzie. The Council of Ministers declassified some of the confidential documents related to this surveillance last week, allowing Casteleiro, who has headed the CNI since 2022, to explain to Barcelona's Court of Instruction Number 23 that Sánchez and Paluzie were spied on from 2019. Although Casteleiro alone, the Catalan police force, the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), detected intrusions on Sánchez's mobile phone as early as 2015, when theoretically there was still no authorization to spy on him. The pro-independence leader was a Junts candidate for the Catalan Parliament in 2018 and for the Spanish Congress in 2019, and the party's general secretary between 2020 and 2022. Casteleiro has acted as he did a few months ago in the case of the spying on ERC deputies Josep Maria Jové and Diana Riba. That is, he has limited himself to corroborating only what the declassified portion of the Supreme Court's rulings allows us to know—that since 2019 the spying on Sánchez and Paluzie was judicially authorized—but without confirming the details or the methods of espionage. In an appearance before Congress in May 2022, the former director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), Paz Esteban, had already admitted to having spied, with the Supreme Court's approval, on both Sánchez and Paluzie. Intrusions from four years prior

In May 2022, the ANC filed a lawsuit regarding the spying on its leaders, although it did not target any specific state official or agency. At that time, and based on a Citizen Lab report, it was established that those affected were Paluzie, with four attacks and one confirmed infection between 2019 and 2020; Sánchez, with 26 attacks between 2015 and 2017 and four confirmed infections; the national secretaries Sònia Urpí, with two SMS attacks in June 2020 and one confirmed infection, and Arià Bayé, with one SMS in 2020; and the grassroots member of the organization, Jordi Domingo, a victim via WhatsApp in 2019. Furthermore, a report by the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) confirms that Sà was also targeted. The first attack occurred in September 2015, when he had just been elected president of the ANC but an independence referendum had not yet been agreed upon. Most of the attacks occurred between then and October 2017, when he was imprisoned along with the president of Òmnium, Jordi Cuixart. In fact, the police assert that Sánchez's mobile phone was the victim of a malicious Pegasus attack and suffered data extraction between September and October 13, 2017, right at the height of the October 1 referendum and before he entered prison. All of these infections would fall outside the period for which there would have been judicial authorization, which Casteleiro has admitted today.

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The Diades are long gone from the massive pro-independence demonstrations, those that ultimately marked the political course and generated a turning point in the Catalan and state paradigm. Catalonia has been in a post-independence period for at least a year and a half—since the independence movement lost the Catalan government after the March 12 elections—and this year's Diada certifies this. However, while it's true that the mobilization this September 11th had even lower participation—some 41,500 people in Barcelona, ​​​​Girona, ​​and Tortosa—than a year ago (70,000 across Catalonia), the streets continue to fill with unconditional supporters, proving that the movement has not disappeared. It doesn't have the institutional power it held a year ago, with the Generalitat as its leading exponent, but the pro-independence parties continue to influence the Catalan and state legislatures. In fact, they hold the key. And as was the case before 2010, when the Process was barely getting started, now the political agenda is no longer set by the path towards a state of its own, but by everyday issues that also structure a nation. Catalan is the clearest example and has become the spearhead of this Diada.

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Silvia Orriols will be attending the Catalan National Day demonstration in Barcelona. The leader of the Catalan Alliance had not attended since becoming mayor of Ripoll and subsequently being elected to the Parliament. However, this year she has decided to visit the Catalan capital, according to sources within the party confirmed to ARA, although both the ANC and Òmnium, the main organizers of the mobilization, have distanced themselves from the party due to its xenophobic stances.

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The celebration of Catalonia's National Day will kick off on September 10th with a new feature: the solemn flag-raising ceremony at the Parliament, presided over by the Speakers of the Parliament and the Generalitat, Josep Rull and Salvador Illa, and the Mayor of Barcelona, ​​Jaume Collboni. The flag will fly year-round next to the Palau del Parlament. In the afternoon, the ANC (Catalan National Assembly), Òmnium (Union of Catalonia), the Council of the Republic, the Intersindical (Union of Trade Unions), and the Ciemen (Ciemen) will promote the traditional Diada demonstration to denounce, this year, tax plunder, the minoritization of the Catalan language, and the denationalization of Catalonia.

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A few days before the celebration of the Diada, the president of the National Assembly of Catalonia, Lluís Llach, emphasizes the need for civil society to take the initiative in pressuring political parties to achieve independence.

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Hello, how are you?

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Another departure from the leadership of the ANC. And not just any departure. The man who was the second most voted candidate by members after Lluís Llach is also leaving the ship. The former vice-president of the Parliament, Josep Costa, has ceased to be the national secretary of the organization. most members of the critical sector have already done so after the approval of the reform of the statutes that reduces the majorities when making decisions. In a letter signed with other secretaries who have already resigned, and which ARA has had access to, Costa does not mince his words when criticizing the management headed by Lluís Llach and disassociates himself from the entity. Costa, who had called for a vote against the reform of the statutes that was approved by the partners in an incontestable manner, had already had several clashes in recent weeks with Llach's standing committee, the Assembly's reduced governing body.

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The ANC is bleeding again. Most of the remaining members of the critical sector announced this Monday that they are leaving the secretariat, according to ARA. Their departure comes after last week's The partners will validate the reform of the statutes which was championed by the leadership led by Lluís Llach to avoid the decision-making deadlock that this current exercised. Not in vain, the reform has eliminated the requirement of two-thirds for electing an organic position, allows the return of former secretaries, and prevents the entity from presenting an electoral battle. These approaches were rejected by critics because they considered that they make the Assembly lose its transversal nature and search for consensus.

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The ANC leadership has gotten its way. The leadership, led by Lluís Llach, wanted to reform the statutes to prevent the critical sector from continuing to block Decision-making and the election of officials, and the members have validated the modification with 73% support, according to ARA. The endorsement of the management, which required a two-thirds vote, is incontestable: 2,496 members voted in favor of the reform and only 859 voted against it. Participation, however, was very low.

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