Salvador Illa should launch in the "coming days" a round of contacts with parliamentary groups to promote a national pact on education that should serve to address the crisis the sector is experiencing. And in these conversations, he will also invite the far-right parties, Vox and Aliança Catalana. As the Government spokesperson, Sílvia Paneque, explained, the executive always includes all groups that make up the parliamentary arch in these types of calls, but added that neither Vox nor Aliança Catalana "have ever attended" these meetings. "The Government prioritizes agreements with groups that do not have hate speech," added Paneque. There is no established calendar yet and the Government has not specified whether Salvador Illa himself will be at these meetings, but Paneque stated that the president's "will" is for this round to begin "as soon as possible".

The Swedish legislative elections this Sunday leave no clear winner, but there is no doubt about who the losers are. On one hand, the far-right party Sweden Democrats (SD, by its Swedish acronym), which has retreated for the first time since it entered Parliament in 2010 and has lost the title of second-largest force. And the other major casualty is the Social Democratic Party. Although it remains the largest formation in the country, the result obtained is the worst in the last century, since Sweden implemented universal suffrage.

On the way back from the Diada celebration in Barcelona, I heard that the protesters were making the same demographic summary: there were people over 50 and under 25. And the presence of young people is interpreted as a green shoot that dispels the idea that the end of the 2017 process created a cut that had no tail behind it.It helps that the failure of the 2017 process objective, plus the subsequent state repression and the division of the parties, apart from leaving the Government in the hands of the PSC, has shifted the center of political debate in Catalonia, so that problems such as the lack of housing, insecurity on the streets, the poor service of the suburban trains (Rodalies), strikes in Education, Healthcare or the farmers' protests, the use of the language... all this has ended up filling the voting intention polls for Aliança Catalana, which mimics the messages of the entire European far-right: there are groups impossible to incorporate into Catalan identity, who furthermore commit crimes and take the aid, with the approval of traditional parties, some corrupt and all clinging to their seats. And so, the lifelong debate, the Catalonia-Spain one, is replaced by the local version of a darker and more authoritarian global agenda. Yes, we have a debate about the regional financing system or the application of the amnesty, but the protest vote, of radical change, is shifting, polls say, towards Aliança Catalana, hand in hand with the identity vote in a radical sense (particularly Islamophobic, as we heard in the party's speeches at the Diada) and the punishment vote against the institutions.Where do these votes come from? Many of them come from the sovereignty movement, especially from Junts, and now Vox intends to attract the most Spanish-leaning disenchanted vote from the PSC, also taking advantage of the fact that it has now reached the middle of the legislative term with serious management problems in all the departments most important in terms of budget and impact on the lives of the majority. At the end of the week, Santiago Abascal will come to Catalonia to open the political season, taking advantage of the fact that Aliança Catalana has placed at the center the debate on the favorite topic they share, which is immigration. For Vox, the enemies are immigration and Sánchez, who does not defend Spain's borders. And for Aliança Catalana, the enemies are immigration and the rest of the parties, which do not defend security, public services; that is to say, Catalan identity and Western identity.

Twenty-five years have passed since that fateful date; the scenarios are different, but the perplexity persists and grows. On September 11, 2001, we abruptly discovered two things: that there is no rearguard when fanaticism prevails and that the end of history was merely a mirage built by an enthusiastic idealism. From the images of the destroyed Twin Towers, we have moved to the images of migrants entering Ceuta, driven by planned rumors and great despair. A quarter of a century has passed between the two news events, and we have exchanged the decapitated ingenuities of the end of the Cold War for the saturated incredulities of the new hybrid wars. This August, with our eyes set on the Spanish city in North Africa, we have also discovered two things: borders can be very precarious and a peculiar explosive mix of cynicism, irresponsibility, and fanaticism has colonized politics, especially in the international sphere. When we saw the first plane crash into Manhattan, we thought, during the initial minutes, that all of it was not entirely real but rather a movie; when we saw the flood of people entering Ceuta, we did not doubt the certainty of the event, even though fake and real images are mixed on social media. The world became more insecure in 2001; now it has become more chaotic, indecipherable, and explosive. Beyond the facts, there are the inertias that now dominate the public sphere of developed societies: fear, distrust, unhealthy nostalgia, and disinterest in the truth. And, above all, the rejection of politics, which a part of the citizenry considers “a problem.” In this theater, the predatory leaderships of figures like Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu obtain the admiration and adherence of those who demand “immediate changes” and “effective solutions.” These are leaderships that offer a plausible refuge at a price that many citizens are willing to pay: militarized security in exchange for sidelining rights, freedoms, empathy, and compassion. Behold the banner—hardly original—of those who want to bury the world that emerged in 1945.

The European far-right is enjoying a sweet moment. The overwhelming victory of Alternative for Germany in the Saxony-Anhalt regional elections is just the latest in a chain of warnings: the far-right has become normalized. But at the same time that it gains strength, it also highlights its internal divisions. "It has become a normal party that wins and loses for the same reasons as the rest of the parties: because of the economy, corruption, the campaign, or the ability to set the agenda," asserts Javier Carbonell, an analyst at the European Policy Center. "That it is a consolidated force is a fact, but the relationship with the rest of the parties is not yet normal; it is not easy to form coalitions with them," qualifies László Andor, former European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, and now an analyst, in statements to ARA.

Last Monday, King Felipe VI received the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles; the Chief of the Defense Staff, Teodoro López Calderón; and the Commander of Ceuta, Luis Fernández Herrero, at the Zarzuela Palace. The Palace's communication services immediately released a solemn image in which the King and the two military commanders were seen dressed in military uniforms. A detail that did not go unnoticed and which triggered speculation due to the absence of President Sánchez, who is responsible for setting and directing governance strategies. The military power, therefore, wanted to make its presence felt, and the Head of State offered them the opportunity, amidst rumors about discrepancies between the President and the Minister. And it is hard to believe that the image was innocent. In a country that comes from where it comes, the staging is, at the very least, unsettling. What is the reason for this militaristic gesture in the face of a crisis of considerable complexity that does not admit dysfunctional gestures, much less of this character? The monarch staging the army.

It is no coincidence that one of the protagonists of the election campaign in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt has been an old acquaintance for the citizens: the old Simson motorcycle, associated with the daily life of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). The motorcycle, painted blue, the color of Alternative for Germany (AfD), is the vehicle with which the leader of the far-right party Ulrich Siegmund has ridden through election events in which, even, members of the AfD have sung the anthem of the GDR.

The 2026 Diada leaves two elements on the table. The first is that, contrary to forecasts, there has been an upturn in participation in the independence movement's mobilizations, which is good news for a movement that has been living in a state of collective depression for years. The second is that all the actors of Catalanism, with a special mention for Òmnium and its current president, Xavier Antich, focused their messages in the same direction: the necessary fight against the far-right represented by Aliança Catalana.

In 2012, when Europe was fully immersed in the debt crisis, a group of economists, academics, and lawyers opposed to bank bailouts launched the platform Wahlalternative 2013, which the following year led to the founding of Alternative for Germany (AfD). What had begun as a movement critical of the monetary union quickly changed course. The 2015 refugee crisis accelerated its drift toward the radical right and shifted its discourse toward immigration, nationalism, and the rejection of the European liberal order.

We democratic Europeans have put our hands to our heads seeing that in Saxony-Anhaltthe AfD has just achieved around 44% of the votes in a historic victory. We ask ourselves why, especially in Germany, which has made the memory of its past a collective responsibility. But the thing is that history does not repeat itself because we forget it. It repeats itself when we manage to convince ourselves that this time is different.Regrettably, remembering does not guarantee learning. Historical memory can coexist with psychological mechanisms that, in situations of threat, frustration, or loss of trust, make precisely the solutions we know can be destructive attractive. When people perceive that their world is threatened, fear reorganizes priorities. We have a recent example of this in Ceuta. The threat can be economic, cultural, territorial, or physical, but whatever it may be, it always increases the need forsecurity, order, control, and belonging. And the threat does not need to be objective to be psychologically effective: it is enough that it is perceived as real. Symbolic threats can be as powerful as material ones. It is in this context that authoritarian discourses find fertile ground: they promise protection, offer certainties, and simplify the world.

Without the necessary majority to govern, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is relying on defectors to come to power in Saxony-Anhalt. "I do not close the doors to anyone, I do not believe in sanitary cordons," said the party leader and election winner, Ulrich Siegmund, after an election in which the ultra-rightists came close to an absolute majority. Siegmund has already expressed his desire to forge a stable majority because governing as a minority would mean depending "on the mood of one deputy or another." Even so, he is calling on "individual actors who are willing to jump over their own shadow and who consider that the future of Saxony-Anhalt is more important than their own careers." Mind you, the condition set by the ultra-rightists is that their "basic positions are maintained."

The historic victory of Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the state of Saxony-Anhalt is a political earthquake for a country trapped in existential angst. German exceptionalism is more earthly than ever. The country's economy has had six consecutive years of meager growth. The traditionally powerful industry is frightened and is demanding more protection against China and United States tariffs. The shocks of energy prices and the announced crisis in the automotive sector –now aggravated by the announcement of mass layoffs at Volkswagen– fuel a feeling of an end of an era that makes the European Union tremble.

The victory of Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Saxony-Anhalt has shaken Europe, with the far-right having real options to gain power in a state for the first time since the fall of Nazism. The overwhelming ultra victory has arrived in the state of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), with economic and social indicators below those of West Germany more than 30 years after reunification. Germany is also not going through its best economic moment, with an engine that has lost power and a federal government that is trying to revive it through rearmament. We talk about the causes of the ultra victory with Steven Forti, professor of contemporary history at the UAB and expert in the far-right.

So here we are, discussing whether the AfD (Alternative for Germany, the party that won, by a wide margin, the elections in the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt) is Nazi, neo-Nazi, far-right, extreme right, extremist... Let's call it what we want: eighty-one years after their defeat, Adolf Hitler's supporters have once again won an election in Germany. Now it is all exclamations, but in reality, we are facing the umpteenth confirmation of the process of the return of fascism to Europe. Regarding this process, in fact, there is no need to speculate further, because it is already a fact. Now we must ask ourselves if it has the potential to become hegemonic again, in Germany and in the rest of Europe. The answer is yes. Someone will object that the words fascism and fascists have been abused to the point of emptying them of meaning: it is quite true and, if anything, one can add that the problem is that not only have these two words been trivialized, but also many others in common use in public debate, some as central as democracy, freedom or citizenship. But no matter how much political language has been worn down, blurred, and trivialized, that does not take away from the fact that fascism exists and is once again very strong. It has various causes for which it claims to take a stand, but the main one is undoubtedly the migratory movements and demographic changes occurring throughout the West. Faced with this complex reality, fascism and the far-right have a simple recipe: distrust in institutions (even though they run in elections to govern them), discrediting of the “political class” (even though they themselves are, also, “political class”), identity retreat, nostalgia for an imaginary past era in which everything was better, scientific denialism, and enormous doses of fear and hatred towards the different and, above all, towards the poor.It has become a commonplace to point to social democracy and, in particular, the “left” as the culprits for the rise of the far right and fascism, as they have not known how to provide an answer to the issues that concern the citizenry (from the outset, any pointing of the finger at a culprit is, in itself, a victory for fascism and the far right, because finger-pointing and blaming are forms of fear and hatred). It is possible, but the traditional liberal rights do not provide an answer either, as they try not to yield space to the far rights by assuming their discourse: Merz's CDU has ended up yielding, with its anti-immigration discourse, the majority of its electorate in Saxony-Anhalt to the far right.The results of Saxony-Anhalt are a mirror, and in Spain, where there is speculation about a new judicial coup d'état to imprison the head of government and where the right-wing party and the fascist one openly add up their results in the polls, the mirror reflects an especially worrying image. Germany, Year Zero is the title of a film by Roberto Rossellini about the material, but above all moral, devastation that fascism and war bring. It is highly recommended to watch it.

Tomorrow school begins, and it will start with the teachers' strike that the unions already announced when the school year ended, around Saint John's Day. The Government has not managed to deactivate the strike, even though it has had two months to do so. The unions feel strong and are carrying momentum based on real shortcomings, dragged on for a long time, and this protest speed of the unions cannot be stopped with a standard negotiation. Education in Catalonia needs a top-to-bottom reformulation, and the turbulence that will begin tomorrow will continue for several months. We already said it here last week: if there is any public service that requires a generous, country-wide pact, it is education. But today all the front-page headlines are for the victory of Alternative for Germany in Saxony. The far-right wins in a German state talking about closing borders, expelling criminals, and reclaiming Germany for the Germans and not for immigrants. The reasons for this victory resonate here: voters who feel abandoned by the traditional parties, who have become impoverished, who have seen the street landscape change, resentful of what they consider the failure of reunification, who pay many taxes that do not improve public services, etc.This resentment based on real events, but which is conveniently stirred up by the verbal violence of social networks, ends in a protest vote, the one that hurts the most, against the system.The problem is that these parties do not have solutions for these problems, and in the long run they only end up making things worse. And behind the anti-immigration discourse there is an anti-democracy discourse. This vote is an invitation to gradually change democracy for an authoritarian and violent system (Russia, China, Trump's United States) that seems to solve problems because it does not accept the limits of these trifles called laws or human rights.It is true that the usual parties do not provide the best answers either, and for a long time, the normal, ordinary people who used to vote for them have become fed up because they do not listen, and because they do not notice that the wonders they explain during the campaign improve their lives. Agreed, the solution to serious problems is never quick, but the lifelong parties or ideological spaces are more comfortable with dialectical fighting than defending people from powerful private interests. An example: this morning President Illa was interviewed on 3cat and he assured that the government of the Generalitat is assessing whether to take the leader of Aliança Catalana to the Prosecutor's Office, Sílvia Orriols, for her tweets about the fatal attack in Manresa.Ricard Ustrell: Will they report Sílvia Orriols' tweets to the Public Prosecutor's Office as a hate crime?Salvador Illa: Whenever it is observed that there are behaviors that violate the legal framework and that incite hatred, the Government will act. We are assessing it, and if that is the case, in this instance and with everyone we will act the same.

The most feared forecasts for Brussels have come to pass. For the first time since the fall of Nazism, the German far-right has real options to govern a state. The results in Saxony-Anhalt have fallen like a bucket of cold water on the community capital, where the victory of Alternative for Germany (AfD) is read as a harbinger of the penetration of this intolerant ideology no longer into the hemicycle – where it has had a few reserved seats for some time – but into the front line of executive power. A reading contrary to that made by the most populist leaders, who see the results as a political springboard.

The right-wing shift of the country is advancing unstoppably. I am not speaking in electoral terms, but rather about the level of tension and simplification of the debate, ingredients of this turn towards the purest and hardest right, the one that boasts of easily finding culprits and remedies. The right is taking over the landscape and finding fertile ground in a country like Catalonia, where several factors of disaffection coincide: a) a feeling of decadence and uprooting; b) a real strain on public services, and c) the pendular response to the left-wing turn of the years of the 'Procés', when the CUP set the agenda with an impractical and highly moralistic leftism (“Franciscan”, as Enric Juliana called it). The 2010s, in Catalonia, were an Age of Aquarius, with a lot of posturing and clichés. Manuel Delgado has said that “in the face of hate speech, the left has offered urban gardens”. It is an exaggeration, but one based on real facts.I am of a certain age and I remember how the yuppies hedonists of the 80s laughed at the hippies. Everything is cyclical, but each cycle makes things worse. The migration crisis has derailed the left, which has been left without an answer, has worn out the term fascist to the point that it no longer means anything and has left the field open to half-baked Trumpists who preach Manichaeism and ethnic hatred. To face this offensive, anti-fascism no longer has a David Fernàndez, but rather Juana Dolores and other parodies that dare to speak in the name of the working class and continue to point out trivialities instead of addressing what had always been the strong point of the left: real policies against inequality and the collapse of public services. These are major threats that the rampant right will hardly address, because it is more profitable for them to spread fear and hatred towards the weak, and, in the case of Spain, to stimulate a jingoistic resurgence that, even without exaggeration, can be branded as neo-Francoist. The most worrying thing about this phenomenon is not the brainless with their braying, but the police, the judges, and the economic and media oligarchies that hope to fish in troubled waters. It is a coalition too powerful for the PSOE to deal with, considering that the Sánchez government is driving without a steering wheel and with flat tires.Spain is moving with firm steps towards the hegemony of the PP and Vox, which will have a lesser reflection in Catalonia. But in front of it, there is no longer the old transversal, mesocratic Catalanism based on civic strength, but rather a PSC surrendered to the PSOE and, therefore, in a state of shock; two depressed parties managing the shipwreck of the 'Procés' and a local far-right that instead of challenging the State, as it should, prefers to attack those who wear a veil and do not eat pork. A desolate panorama that can only be reversed when Catalan identity—which, despite its thinning, constitutes our core, in a country torn apart by divisions of all kinds—decides to form a common front and stand up. Since October 1st, we know that this means conflict. External and internal. Are we prepared for it?Let us remember –once again– the journalist Agustí Calvet, Gaziel. In 1936, when Companys asked him for advice, the journalist predicted the rise of fascism and the fall of the republic: “Will we have time to organize ourselves (...) so that when the inevitable collapse comes, our freedoms do not also collapse?”, he asked himself. And finally, an appeal to the unity of the Catalans: “It is not (...) an indispensable task: it is THE ONLY ONE”. The difference is that Gaziel advocated for this Catalan unity in the face of “Castilian and Castilianized Spain”, and today we know that it is not possible to make a clean break between these two realities. Here is the challenge we will face.

“Liberty and democracy are incompatible”. It was Peter Thiel, the superhero of Pay Pal and Palantir Technologies, who thus gave meaning to the offensive against democracy that has been circulating in the United States for some time and that Donald Trump is putting into practice with systematic abuse of power, permanently disregarding the legislative and judicial branches. The ball has been inflating. The ideologues of the government, with Vice President J.D. Vance in the front line, have joined in. And the anti-democratic flood has continued to prosper, in the USA, but also in Europe.

Football fans, economic elites –like the richest man in the world, Elon Musk– and markedly ultra-right formations have developed a taste for raising their right arm high in tribute to the Nazi and Italian fascism of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. And they are not the only ones. For years, the famous phrases "Life was better under Franco" and "This didn't happen under Franco" have also been heard, assertions that, often and paradoxically, come from young people for whom the image of Franco is that of a bald, old man who could barely walk and who, therefore, couldn't have been very dangerous.

The scorching summer invites us to delve into the most poetic corner of our personal library: with the Morella Document, by Vicent Andrés Estellés, or The test of the Mallow flower, by Jordi Llavina, I could almost forget about the ultra-international, one of the most reactionary and dangerous operations we have known, now infiltrated in classic liberal and conservative parties, which have believed that they had to approach their frameworks and strategies to retain the electorate.