If there is one thing that defines the budget agreement between ERC and the PSC it is that its fulfillment will basically depend on the Spanish government. Specifically, on the PSOE continuing in La Moncloa. The orbital train line, which should be financed by the corresponding ministry; the investment consortium so that Catalonia has decision-making capacity; the change of statutes in the Zona Franca Consortium; the co-management of airports and, obviously, the transfer of IRPF or the approval of a new regional financing model.

The approval of a budget always has two dimensions. The first is that it allows administrations to function normally and have more resources to carry out specific policies. From this point of view, the approval of accounts is always good news, because it is a measure that positively impacts both public services and the economy in general due to the flow of resources, for example for infrastructure, that it entails. The second dimension is political. In the case of the accounts approved yesterday by the executive council and presented to Parliament, they represent the cornerstone that will allow Salvador Illa to complete his term.

Before talking about the signing of the budget agreement between Illa and Junqueras, this morning we had two bombshell news. The Mossos d'Esquadra have arrested Jonathan Andic, the son of Mango founder Isak Andic, for the death of his father, who died at 71 while hiking in the Salnitre caves. Although initially treated as an accident, a few months ago the Mossos began investigating Andic's son for homicide, who was the only person with whom the businessman was that day. And while we were still processing the news, the political bombshell arrived: Zapatero has been charged with influence peddling, criminal organization, and document forgery in the case of the Plus Ultra airline bailout. The company was bailed out by Sánchez's government during the pandemic with a loan of 53 million euros. Now the National Court is charging Zapatero for having influenced (having received a commission of 10 million, deposited in an account in Panama) this bailout. He has always denied it, and Sánchez has always said the bailout was done correctly. The group that reported Zapatero was the far-right group Manos Limpias. Today, his office was searched, and he will have to appear to testify in 15 days. The first pieces of evidence, which became known this morning when the secrecy of the investigation was lifted, do not seem very solid. He is the first former Spanish president to be charged in Spain (Rajoy has been charged in Andorra). The impact for Sánchez is huge: they are friends, Zapatero supports him - unlike Felipe González -, and if we add to this the result in Andalusia, the funeral in Moncloa continues today. And I would bet anything that within 24 hours someone will remember that Zapatero was negotiating with Puigdemont (like Santos Cerdán). Meanwhile, this morning, at 8 o'clock, President Salvador Illa and Oriol Junqueras were at the Palau de la Generalitat and shook hands again, as a prelude to the photo of the day, that of the signing of the agreement between the Government and Esquerra Republicana by which Junqueras' party will approve the 2026 budgets of Illa's government. These are days of handshakes. Yesterday they already had the first one in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia at the presentation of the orbital train.As always, when a party gives a vote as important as the budget vote to a government, the debate is whether it has settled for little or a lot. Especially since Esquerra is an independentist party and the PSC is not, and it enthusiastically supported 155. Firstly, I think no one should be surprised that Esquerra or Comuns approve accounts for the PSC, because the most important agreement was already made, which is the investiture. If there was any incoherence in ERC's support for the PSC, it was then, not now. I believe that if you vote for someone's investiture, you have an obligation to cooperate with them during the legislature that other parties do not have. Whoever invests is saying they see potential. The fact is that for some time now, we have naturally accepted that, for example, next year there will be no budgets because there are municipal and Spanish elections and, of course, parties cannot support each other. Perhaps this is what is done nowadays, but I find it very selfish on the part of the parties. From this point of view, it is normal for Esquerra to give its vote to the Government. 

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.

Whoever made the decision to disguise two plainclothes agents among the teachers meeting at the Institut Pau Claris did not calculate the effects their discovery would have, in the midst of the Government's crisis with the majority teacher unions. Salvador Illa's partners point invariably towards the Director of the Police, Josep Lluís Trapero, as responsible and demand his head. This Saturday, both ERC and Comuns, essential for governance, have increased pressure on the socialist executive, which from Tuesday must face a new series of strikes in public schools and institutes. "If the director general does not want to resign, it will be up to the president of the Generalitat to dismiss him," stressed the leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, from Tàrrega. The leader of Comuns, Jéssica Albiach, has also called for his dismissal because "the infiltration crosses all red lines".

If there is a trend that the ARA survey confirms, it is that Gabriel Rufián is a politician highly valued by voters. Specifically, according to the poll commissioned by this newspaper, the ERC spokesperson in Madrid is the one who gets the best score and, in fact, the only one who passes (5). He is followed by the leader of Aliança Catalana, Sílvia Orriols, who gets a 4.2. The valuation of the far-right leader confirms the rise that all polls have shown in recent months. Both leaders are ahead of the president of the Generalitat and leader of the PSC, Salvador Illa, who gets a 4.1. With this data in hand, a first conclusion can be drawn: that one of the people, Gabriel Rufián, who has positioned himself as the battering ram against the far-right, is the best-valued leader, but that the leader who is the face, precisely, of the Catalan far-right is just behind.

Sant Jordi's Day. As is tradition, the streets of Catalonia become a hive of books, roses, and senyeras. And, in the midst of the great celebration of reading, a genre that tries to make a space for itself is politics: leaders often swap the lectern for the pen to fix their narrative or explain their "truth". Below, we analyze the list of titles that have been most purchased in recent years (since 2018), based on data provided by the publishing sector consulted by ARA, with a predominance of titles linked to the Procés.

"The position is very clear," the Finance ministers keep repeating, even though the hottest part of IRPF collection is up in the air. First, it was María Jesús Montero who closed the door on the transfers agreed between ERC and PSC, and now her successor has taken on this role. Arcadi España assures that the Spanish government will not deviate from the agreement signed between Moncloa and the Generalitat in the meeting of the Bilateral Commission last July: "For all the autonomous communities and also for Catalonia, we have the will to increase management capacity, always within the framework of the State Tax Administration Agency (AEAT)." What does this mean? Basically, that the transfer to Catalonia of the collection of 100% of the IRPF is not a commitment that the state executive makes its own, and that, in any case, it will be the AEAT that will have the powers in management and collection. The Catalan Tax Agency (ATC) should settle for collaborating in "a networked tax management model," as specified in the Bilateral document.

New mass resignation at ERC. After the cases of Girona and Barcelona, where the resignation of more than half of the executives forced the appointment of a caretaker committee, now comes that of Igualada. In this case, all members of the leadership have decided to step down in response to the recent internal vote, which rejected the Rufián path (coalition with Comuns and CUP) that the resigning members had advocated for the upcoming municipal elections. And, as in the Girona and Barcelona cases, they leave with direct criticism of the party's national executive, chaired by Oriol Junqueras.

New mass resignation in ERC. After the cases in Girona and Barcelona, where the resignation of more than half of the executives forced a caretaker committee to be put in charge, now comes that of Igualada. In this case, all members of the leadership have decided to resign in response to the recent internal vote, which rejected the Rufián path (coalition with Comuns and CUP) which the resigning members had bet on for the upcoming municipal elections. And, as in the cases of Girona and Barcelona, they leave with direct criticism of the party's national executive, chaired by Oriol Junqueras.

This afternoon, Esquerra's spokesperson in Madrid, Gabriel Rufián, will present in Barcelona his proposal for a broad left-wing front, which he already presented in Madrid in February. He will be accompanied by Irene Montero, from Podem, but neither Oriol Junqueras nor Elisenda Alamany will be there.And they won't be there because they don't agree with Rufián's proposal to unite everything to the left of the PSOE to curb the far-right. Basically, because Esquerra's objective is to replace the socialists in Catalonia, not to position itself to their left. In the same way that for many years, and still now, first Convergència and then Junts occupied in Catalonia part of the space that the PP occupies in Spain, Esquerra has always wanted to get ahead of the PSC, and therefore Junqueras finds, to put it in current terms, that this is not his war, that if Podem or Sumar or Més Madrid have a representation problem, they will deal with it themselves.From here comes the headline of this chronicle, which is that Rufián is once again testing ERC's patience, and to be more precise, Junqueras', who said that he did not spend four years in prison to put Ada Colau as a candidate. The party leadership has seen how Rufián has started to fly solo, has created his own political and personal brand by expressing himself as if he were the critical conscience of the Spanish left, and goes so far as to recall that he lives in the Basque Country and works in Madrid but does not visit Catalonia much. The situation is ironic, because Rufián is a political creation of Junqueras, the personification of an intuition: for Esquerra to enter the metropolitan area of Barcelona, it was necessary to have a candidate who was like the majority of metropolitan voters. The bet was disruptive and it worked. Precisely because of this, Junqueras still needs Rufián with one year to go until the municipal elections. And Rufián obviously needs Esquerra for his project of left-wing synthesis throughout Spain.Meanwhile, this morning President Illa received Minister Puente at the Palau de la Generalitat, amid smiles of complicity. Puente's reluctance with the chaos of Renfe and Adif in Catalonia is shown by the fact that Illa and Puente concluded this meeting taking advantage of the minister's presence in Barcelona because yesterday evening he attended the presentation of the first edition of the Aena literary awards. The Secretary of State who came to live in Catalonia left after a month. The problems that were supposed to be solved in April are now said to be solved in June. Ila's government has discovered that it was not so easy to solve problems through good governance and reconciliation with Spain, thanks to having an allied government in Madrid. Neither with Rodalies, nor with financing, nor with almost anything. Good morning.

Gabriel Rufián's tour to defend his proposal for a broad front of the left makes its second stop in Barcelona this Thursday. The ERC spokesperson in Congress will sit down with Podemos's number two, Irene Montero, after a few weeks ago, in Madrid, his interlocutor was the spokesperson for Més Madrid, Emilio Delgado. In the front row, he knows that the president of Esquerra, Oriol Junqueras, will not be there – he has justified his absence due to "agenda matters" – but a small representation of the party's executive will be: the deputy secretary-general, Oriol López, and the deputy secretary, Laura Pelay.

Oriol Junqueras has spent weeks actively and passively rejecting the project of left-wing unity that ERC spokesperson in Madrid, Gabriel Rufián, is trying to promote at the state level. The republican leader, however, went a step further this Monday with a more than clarifying sentence about his position: "I went to prison for Catalonia, not because Colau is a deputy on an Esquerra list," he summarized in the context of the presentation of the book by deputy Francesc-Marc Álvaro. A statement for which the former mayor of Barcelona has accused him of doing mansplaining.

The ERC deputy in Congress Francesc-Marc Álvaro presented the book, but it was another republican in Madrid who took the party president's message. "I went to jail for Catalunya, not because Colau is a deputy on an Esquerra list." Oriol Junqueras has cut short the unitary list of the left promoted for weeks by Gabriel Rufián with the collaboration of his former colleague in the lower house, Joan Tardà. In fact, a few days ago Tardà himself suggested in an interview in Público that Colau be number 2 on a list headed by Rufián and that David Fernàndez (CUP) also be in third position.

In an interview yesterday in La Vanguardia, the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo stated that Pedro Sánchez is delaying the application of the amnesty to Carles Puigdemont. It is not new. Before, Feijóo had already said that Sánchez has deceived Carles Puigdemont with the amnesty law.

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.

A well-known economist assured me this week that there would be a Catalan government budget for 2026. He was very convinced. In fact, he had no doubt whatsoever, after applying game theory, a branch of mathematics used to model situations involving negotiation, conflict, competition, cooperation, and other similar interactions. This theory aims to determine the best possible strategy for each player and the expected outcome of each situation. Games can be zero-sum (the gains or losses of some players are offset by the gains or losses of others) or non-zero-sum, meaning everyone can win or lose.

"A party that has had Francesc Macià, Lluís Companys, Josep Irla, Josep Tarradellas, and Pere Aragonès is above all else." The president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, asserted this Friday the importance of his party, above any specific dispute, including regarding the candidates. "We are not afraid of anything," he responded in an interview with Ser Catalunya when asked if he feared that Gabriel Rufián might leave ERC in search of a national left-wing front. "ERC goes far beyond all of that," he insisted, adding that "if we weren't afraid of prison, how can we be afraid of anything else, much less this?"

Any news we discuss here must be understood within the context of a war that increasingly affects us. War first in Ukraine, and now in Iran and Lebanon. The price of oil has climbed again, and we know that when gasoline goes up, everything else goes up. Our economy currently depends on two politicians, Netanyahu in Israel and Trump in the United States, who don't care about any of this because war gives them free rein to do whatever they want. For example, Israel has attacked the world's largest gas fieldSo this war, which the United States has called "Epic Fury," is bringing us epic inflation and epic disaster, like everything Trump's inept finger touches, especially when he lets himself be swayed by the Israeli lobby and trusts his intuition more than his generals. It's becoming clearer every day that the United States won't bring down the ayatollahs' regime with bombings and targeted assassinations.

This is evidence that Catalonia needs a new budget after two extensions. It is also evidence that the negotiating strategies of the PSC and ERC to reach an agreement had reached a dead end. With the Catalan government's decision to withdraw the budget proposal (a gesture unprecedented in Catalan politics) and ERC's announcement that it is willing to negotiate without red lines, the situation has been unblocked, and a possible agreement before the summer is now in sight.