Admired for its singular beauty, the town of Cadaqués resists losing one of the most cherished distinctive features by its neighbours and that makes them feel most proud: its particular "salty talk", with a vocabulary and expressions so genuine that it is considered a dialectal variety with its own name: Cadaquesenc. Although it is one of the fishing villages on the Girona coast where the "salty talk" has been best preserved, largely thanks to its geographical isolation, Cadaqués is finding it increasingly difficult to preserve its linguistic uniqueness due to the homogenizing power of social networks, the pressure of tourism, immigration, and demographic changes. "If Catalan is in danger, imagine Cadaquesenc!", warns philologist Pep Vila, author of the book Paraulari de Cadaqués.

"Our society has not had a serious debate on this topic." This is how Joan B. Casas, dean emeritus of the College of Economists of Catalonia (CEC), expressed himself regarding immigration and its impact on Catalonia. Casas is co-author of a new report presented this Tuesday at the CEC headquarters titled A Useful Migration Policy for Economic and Social Transformation, prepared by the group of experts Economists for Well-being, which outlines the shortcomings of migration policies in Spain and identifies specific solutions so that the arrival of foreign population helps to create an economy that works "for the benefit of the natives, those who have come, and those who may come in the future", in the words of Josep Reyner, another of the co-authors.

“At first I was afraid of everything: of the food, that something might happen to them, I was even afraid of them sleeping away from home. But after the first experience, the girl came back very happy and the fear has passed,” explains Nabila, mother of three, about the summer camps. Her daughter Yosra, eleven years old, has already been to camps twice, once with school and once in the summer. Her son Marouan, 16 years old, has also been – this year will be the fourth time – and the youngest, Omar, hasn't dared to go yet, although Nabila has hopes.

The Swiss have rejected in a referendum the proposal promoted by the far-right to limit the population of the country to ten million inhabitants. The initiative, promoted by the Swiss People's Party, proposed measures to curb demographic growth, mainly through more restrictions on immigration and the right to asylum. According to preliminary results, 55% of voters opposed the proposal.

Slum dwelling became a consolidated reality in the Barcelona of the 60s, with nuclei that became true neighborhoods like Montjuïc or El Somorrostro, but it seemed to have been left behind in the 90s with the major urban development projects that the Olympic Games brought. Instead, homelessness was never completely eradicated, but it was linked to situations of extreme marginality or addiction. Now, with the arrival of new contingents of immigrant population (just as happened in the 60s), both homelessness and a new form of slum dwelling are proliferating again and pose an enormous political challenge to a society that, while it has prospered economically greatly in the last 50 years, maintains significant social differences.

Between Girona and Salt, in a half-finished farmhouse, about twenty African boys, originally from countries like Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania, and Mali, are living in hardship. The house has no electricity or water. It also lacks doors and windows in the openings, and inside, there is only the structure of the main walls. The young men have improvised compartments with cardboard and fabrics where they sleep on mattresses, blankets, and camping tents. In the middle of the building, there is a staircase without walls or a railing, with a very dangerous fall into the void, especially at night. They cook in a room with a wood fire on the ground or with gas stoves, shower with jugs from the well, and have no toilets.

History is an endless succession of changes and, therefore, of crises. Each one seems like the end of the world. Or of what we understand as civilization. Then, life goes on. In another way.

Leo XIV has come to Spain to deliver a speech of inclusion and respect, “the resistance to the imposition of a single meaning,” as Jan Patocka said, although it is hard to believe coming from the highest authority of an institution founded on belief and dogma, that is, the unprovable, and all that follows from it in both theory and practice. But Leo XIV is a pope who gets involved in what is happening in the world, beyond religious debate. He has demonstrated this since his arrival by building his image –in his transition from the American to the global stage– with a clear opposition to Trump and his delusional frivolity.

On November 1, 2010, Mas won the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia with enough force to govern. The next day, ARA dedicated its front page to "the new president's agenda": 1) Streamline the administration, 2) Abolish the inheritance tax, 3) Renegotiate the debt of the Generalitat, 4) Rebuild and complete the Quart Cinturó, 5) Eliminate the 80 km/h speed limit. In popular language, we distinguish between politicians who intend to change the world and those who want to limit themselves to "managing". To make ourselves understood, the former want to approve same-sex marriage and the latter want trains to arrive on time; the former want to change the educational system and the latter want the school year to start on the scheduled date and with full staffing. Mas presented himself as a manager who would bring order after the two left-wing tripartites, which would have been characterized by decisions that held the country back. He also considered – very much in line with a neoliberal ideology that was in better health than it is today – that the Catalan government's accounts could be balanced by cutting unnecessary expenses.Mas failed, it goes without saying: fifteen years later, the Catalan administration has not slimmed down, both the inheritance tax and the 80 km/h on the Barcelona accesses remain in force, the Quart Cinturó is still under construction and we are awaiting the forgiveness of 15% of the FLA debt. Discontent devoured him, and he ended up leading an independence movement in which he did not believe. A movement that – it should be remembered – began with a chaos in the Rodalies service, five years before the start of the Procés.

The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, is playing the immigration card to counter the right, coinciding with the moral battle waged by Leo XIV on the same issue. This Friday, the state executive received the blessing of the head of the Catholic Church for its humanitarian work with newcomers. From the Las Raíces immigrant reception center in La Laguna, Tenerife, which houses 700 arrivals from the Canary coast, the Holy Father was clear: "I appreciate the collaboration of the government, various institutions, and so many men and women of good will who make this humanitarian aid possible," he emphasized, in a speech in French so that the 250 people who could witness it would understand.

If the papal trip to Spain had an underlying message, it is the one that took place this Thursday at the Arguineguín dock, in Gran Canaria. There, next to two migrant survivors of the crossings from Africa, Leo XIV threw a bouquet of flowers into the sea in memory of the thousands of people who die every year in the Atlantic trying to reach the archipelago. According to data from the NGO Caminando Fronteras, 635 people have already died since the beginning of the year. In this scenario, the pontiff's words were very forceful on the very day the so-called Migration Pact in the European Union comes into force: "Human dignity has no passport and does not lose value when crossing a border – he recalled–. What remains of our humanity?", he asked.

For the first time in a decade, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide has fallen. At the end of 2025, there were 117.8 million people in this situation, representing a 4% reduction compared to the previous year. But what might seem like good news at first glance hides a darker reality: record numbers of returns under adverse conditions have also been recorded.

Sunday, June 14, Swiss citizens will vote on one of the most controversial initiatives in recent years: the so-called “Initiative for Sustainability”, known as the “No to a Switzerland of 10 Million” initiative. Driven by the Swiss People's Party (UDC/SVP), the main national-conservative right-wing party, the proposal aims to prevent the permanent resident population from exceeding ten million inhabitants before the year 2050. If the population reaches 9.5 million, the federal government would have to adopt restrictions on migration and, if these were insufficient, renegotiate existing international agreements that favor demographic growth, including the free movement of people agreement with the European Union. Since this agreement came into force in 2002, the Swiss population has grown from 7.3 million to over 9.1 million. Today, more than 27% of residents are foreigners —one of the highest proportions in Europe—, mostly from EU countries.

"Dear migrants, I want to bow before your dignity. Human dignity has no passport nor does it lose value when crossing a border." With these words, Pope Leo XIV made a call this Thursday to shake consciences about immigration and shamed xenophobia from the place where the drama of immigration in Spain is experienced most intensely: the Canary Islands. In an event with immigrants from the Arguineguín pier, in Gran Canaria, also known as the "pier of shame" – where nearly 3,000 people were crammed during the pandemic – he strongly criticized Europe's "indifference" and asked for "an examination of conscience." An examination that he extended to the countries of origin and transit, regarding the conditions that drive emigration and recruitment by mafias, in a plea for international cooperation.

Violence has shaken Belfast for the second consecutive night despite the victim's family's plea for The clashes have concentrated at the Sandyknowes roundabout, a predominantly unionist and Protestant area located about 13 kilometers northwest of the center of Belfast, near the M2 motorway and the Chimney Corner hotel, where, according to various local groups, asylum seekers are being housed. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has established a large deployment with armored vans, riot squads, and water cannons to prevent protesters from reaching the establishment.

Belfast experienced one of the most serious urban violence incidents in recent years on Tuesday night, after several anti-immigration protests escalated into riots, arson, and attacks on homes, businesses, and vehicles in various parts of the Northern Irish capital and its metropolitan area. The mobilizations erupted following the brutal knife attack on Monday night in the north of the city, images of which were widely shared on social media, and which were exploited by far-right groups and agitators to fuel public indignation.

Migrants living in the State visit the doctor less often, have fewer chronic illnesses, and consume fewer medications than those born in the country. However, the lack of early access to the healthcare system leads them to go to emergency services more often and require more hospitalizations. This is the snapshot offered by the report "State of Health and Use of the Healthcare System by the Migrant Population in Spain" from the Ministry of Health, which concludes that people of foreign origin have, on average, a better state of health, use fewer healthcare resources than natives, although they contribute almost equally to the economic sustainability of the system.

It is now known that the end of the Spanish legislature will be a judicial ordeal for the PSOE. As we explain today, there are up to seven open judicial fronts against members of the party or the government, and that's if there are no secret cases underway that could appear at any moment. Many things can be said, but the only certainty is that the legislature began with right-wing protests in the streets and demonstrations by judges against the amnesty law, and it ends with a judicial siege on a party as has not been remembered at least since the end of the Francoist era.

For a long time, the debate has revolved around the question of what explains the rise of the far right. Last Sunday's ARA dedicated In the rest of Europe, this correlation between the far right and immigration is also not found. This is the conclusion of the French demographer Hervé Le Bras in his book El gran engaño (Editorial Hacer, 2024), where he compares the relationship between populism and immigration in six European countries (Austria, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom) and the United States. According to Le Bras, this correlation can even be inverse, meaning that the less immigration there is, the more votes for the far right. There are not a few examples: in Germany, immigrants are in the west, while far-right votes are concentrated mainly in the east. In the United States, Trump wins in the Midwest and the Deep South, which is precisely where immigrants are least present. While in France and Italy there does seem to be some correlation in regional terms, when we go down to the local level, this relationship disappears.According to Le Bras, this unequal distribution of votes for the far-right is mainly explained by the divide between the countryside and the city. For example, in France, in the 2017 elections, 32% of voters in municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants opted for Marine Le Pen, while this percentage dropped to 12% in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants and 5% in Paris. It is the same divide we saw in the United Kingdom with the Brexit referendum, where urban areas were predominantly against it and rural areas in favor.

The ideological frameworks of the xenophobic right are making inroads into the political mainstream. Not so much due to the growth of Aliança Catalana as to the way its discourse is contaminating the rest of the party landscape. This is not unrelated to a moral victory for the far-right, but it also means that parties have decided not to turn their backs on an issue that people consider important, such as immigration management. And they do so by sweetening the most aggressive proposals of Sílvia Orriols' party.It is a similar process (with apologies for the comparison) to what the left has done with environmentalism, which was previously a ridiculed cause and labeled as hippy, until science made everyone realize that it was a matter of paramount importance. The posthumous victory of the green parties was not their hegemony, but the assumption of their ideology by the left – and part of the right – throughout the West.I don't think Aliança Catalana will conquer the central lane of Catalanism, but a part of its ideology, which is largely racist and fascistoid, will be integrated into the ideological corpus of the democratic right (in a format acceptable to its voters) and, finally, perhaps, by the left. The first step has been to accept that immigration is a problem, a challenge that should be presented as a socioeconomic issue and not in cultural or moral terms. This makes it easier to swallow.The debate now is not about races or cultures, but about the economic model: unchecked growth and the strain on public services. On these issues, the conclusion reached by economists (like the signatories of the Informe Fènix) is that Catalonia depends excessively on tourism, which gentrifies and saturates the territory, and furthermore encourages the massive import of cheap labor, which does not help sustain the welfare state. Immigration, therefore, is only beneficial for a part of the Catalan productive fabric (not only tourism, but also the agri-food industry), which exploits it and underpays it in exchange for collapsing public services. This approach, which disregards skin colors, religions, and burqas, makes the demographic debate more accessible to the majority forces.But the migratory debate is not only making headway through technification. The identity issue is reviving. Like any small nation, Catalans fear their dissolution, the sacrifice of their culture on the altar of globalization. At the same time, certain progressivism, while condemning racism and aporophobia, attacks tourists, expats, the mafias that hide behind the swarm of supermarkets and souvenir shops, and the vulture funds, which “merserve” our rejection because they are in a position of power with respect to the defenseless neighbors who have to abandon their neighborhood, the traditional commerce that closes its doors, the Catalan that disappears from the streets. It is a kind of progressive, tolerable xenophobia, where the weak is no longer the one who arrives but the one who welcomes.The problem is that, even though we point to a different enemy, the battle is very similar to the one defended by the far-right (first those from home, rejection of diversity, defense of values and autochthonous culture). We are opening a crack through which toxic ideas can infiltrate. While remembering that the ills of the Catalan production model are not only the fault of outsiders; they are, above all, the fault of the natives who exploit them.In this context, we must ensure that this ideological conversion serves a good purpose (disarming the far-right and bravely facing a real debate) and does not provide moral cover for racism. For this reason, it is very important to frame the debate and place it in the hands of wise people vaccinated against ethnic prejudice.