While the town is still asleep, the day has long since begun at the port. The boats rock gently at the dock, while weathered hands check the nets with the precision of inherited gestures. The ropes creak, the wood still holds the salt of the previous day, and the seagulls trace the first circles in the air, above the water. When the protection of the port is left behind, everything will be in the hands of the wind, the currents, and a sea that never promises how the day will end.The boats set sail slowly and the coast begins to blur behind the breakwater. On land, life goes on. The market stalls occupy the streets, the squares slowly fill up, and the town recovers its daily bustle. But there is a gaze that, almost without realizing it, continues to search the horizon. This scene was repeated, over the years, in the seaside towns of Catalonia. For those who left, a workday began. For those who stayed, a wait made of experience, trust, and a silent hope: to see the silhouette of the boats again before evening fell.For centuries, the Mediterranean was the place to earn a living. It fed entire villages, opened trade routes, brought cultures into contact, and imposed a rhythm that knew nothing of haste. Long before its beaches became a summer holiday destination, the sea was part of work, the table, and the calendar. Each day began with a departure and hoped to end with a return. From this daily coexistence with the sea, a way of understanding life was born that can still be recognized today in the ports, in the markets, and in many of the traditions that have reached our days.A world made of many handsThe Catalan maritime culture depended on an entire community. Around each vessel there were trades and people who made life on board possible. Shipwrights shaped the hulls that would have to face years of navigation; caulkers sealed the wooden joints so that the water would not find any gap, and the net menders reconstructed the nets thread by thread after each day. The guilds, in turn, organized an activity that marked the rhythm of entire ports. When a boat set sail, the discreet work of many other hands also traveled on board.That world lived in suspense of what could not be controlled. Fishermen learned to read the sea before any book. They knew the temperament of the tramontane, distrusted the east wind, and knew that a sudden change in the color of the water or the restless flight of a flock of seagulls could announce a day very different from the one they had imagined. It was knowledge that was not written down anywhere. It passed from parents to children, from masters to apprentices, until it became an almost instinctive way of inhabiting the coast.

I write sitting on a pallet, between open barrels, some already full. I see her, all energy, a burst of vitality, climbed up the ladder, helping with her hands—her arms red with must—to make the grapes slide down. I see him, thoughtful, eating a grape of picapoll and smiling without realizing it, because it is delicious. We bring in “my” grapes, the ones we harvested, the toy ones, and immediately from those purple, compact, very healthy Mandó grapes, a juice springs forth that is a miracle. Up on the tractor, the very white teeth of the lanky young man, who is laughing, enjoying the pleasure of driving a machine, stand out in the darkness of the cellar. “He’s a machine!”, I hear someone say.

Representatives from Catalonia and four other communities –Andalusia, the Balearic Islands, Murcia, and the Valencian Community– met this Thursday with the European Commissioner for Fisheries, the Cypriot Costas Kadis, to demand that the fisheries proposals to be presented shortly by the European Commission for 2027 ensure the viability of the sector and coastal communities. In the same vein, the five territories have claimed from Brussels the "efforts" that fishermen have made in recent years to improve the state of fish stocks in the Mediterranean.

The NGO Open Arms rescued 374 people in the Mediterranean in just four days last week. It is the second mission the organization has carried out in the central Mediterranean this year, after rescuing 9 more people in January, in an operation where the ship was anchored and without navigation permits for 20 days. The spokesperson for Open Arms in Italy, Valentina Brinis, explains that in this mission, the 111th, they rescued "many families and children". The youngest were two babies: one a month old and the other twelve weeks old.

Even in the middle of the morning, the activity at the Blanes fishermen's guild is frantic: a coming and going of boxes full of anchovies and sardines, and mullets and other fish, arriving at this Girona fish market for auction. Unaware of this hustle and bustle and sheltered under the jetties, about forty individuals rest, impassive, in enormous water tanks. Some have only been here a short while and are recovering, waiting for their moment to come. Others are already prepared and will return to the sea soon.

The Egyptian diplomat Nasser Kamel (Cairo, 1959) has been the Secretary-General of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) for the last eight years, the only forum that brings together the 43 countries of the region (including Palestine and Israel), under a European and Jordanian co-presidency. The organization, based in Barcelona, navigates in a very difficult context to try to facilitate cooperation between the two shores of a Mediterranean marked by political, social, and climate crisis. He has agreed to speak to ARA in the final days of his mandate, before retiring.

Like water that springs forth, Maria del Mar Bonet, does not stop. After six decades dedicated to music, poetry, and stages, she returns with the album L'aigua no cansa (Blau/Discmedi, 2026), new songs in homage to the Mediterranean, popular tradition, and poetry. The album will be presented on May 23rd at the Palau de la Música as part of the Guitar BCN program, the starting point of a tour that will include a stop at the Olympia in Paris on October 11th.The album's title is no accident. "The Majorcan poet Pare Rafael Ginard used to say that popular music was like water that never tires," Bonet explains at Espai Mallorca in Barcelona. An image he has made his own and which underpins everything, with the help of Toni Pastor as producer. For the singer, "all the songs have meaning" and were made possible thanks to the lute, castanets, and dobro played by seven Majorcan musicians.

The Prima Foundation (Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area), based in Barcelona, ​​leads the largest scientific cooperation program in the Mediterranean. This program, which promotes scientific collaboration between northern and southern countries, now faces an uncertain future due to discussions surrounding the European Union's new budget framework for the 2027-2034 period. In the previous budget, this program received €700 million in funding, but new EU priorities, such as rearmament, raise concerns about the loss of these resources. "Without this money, the program cannot continue," explains Octavi Quintana, director of the foundation. The creation of Prima was an EU initiative to support science and local talent following the surge of migration from south to north in 2015. The program is based on what is known as science diplomacy, that is, collaboration between the south and the north to find solutions to problems affecting both sides of the Atlantic, such as food security. In this struggle to secure EU resources, Prima is calling on the northern European countries, including Spain, but also France, Italy, and Greece, to express their "firm commitment" to moving the project forward. "Without EU support, it is very difficult for the southern European countries to participate" in the various ongoing projects, explains Quintana, because for these countries, the investments made "represent a very significant effort." In this regard, he emphasizes that the overall difference in per capita income between the south and the north is sevenfold.

When the book was first published in Catalan a few months ago The struggle for control of the Mediterranean. The great Catalan expansion from 1200 to 1500 (Sails and Winds), the British historian David Abulafia explained that he was writing a great deal. He wanted to publish a new book and delve deeper into the history of the Kingdom of Majorca. He was passionate about the history of the medieval Mediterranean. In a interview on the ARAHe recalled that his interest had begun in primary school. "I was captivated by the Crusades, but my teacher refused to discuss them. At Cambridge, I was able to delve deeper and realized that what attracted me was the Mediterranean. I spent a long time in Italy. Historiography didn't pay much attention to the south and Sicily, but I wanted to study from south to south, inevitably leading me to the Catalan world, through the Catalan-Aragonese conquest of Sicily and Sardinia," explained the historian, who died suddenly yesterday, Sunday, at his home in Oxford at the age of 76. Professor Emeritus of Mediterranean History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society, Abulafía dedicated his career to exploring the complex political, economic, and cultural interaction between Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the medieval Mediterranean. He never lost his curiosity or his eagerness to understand the history of this region and that period. He delved deeply into the history of the Catalan-Aragonese Crown, was a great admirer of the work of Ramon Llull, and had a thorough knowledge of the four great chronicles (the collection of texts formed by the Book of the deeds of James I the Conqueror, he Book of the king in Pere by Bernat Desclot, the Chronicle of Ramon Muntaner and the Chronicle of Peter the Ceremonious"The development of a vernacular culture represented in those four great chronicles is remarkable; they are like the Bible of Catalan history. Ferran Soldevila produced a beautiful edition, with a leather binding, very fine paper, and two columns, just like a Bible. It's not the edition most used today, but it was especially prevalent during the Franco regime." Abulafía.

The NGO Caminando Fronteras has released its annual tally of deaths occurring while attempting to reach Spanish shores and has confirmed a significant increase in shipwrecks of boats trying to reach the Balearic Islands from Algeria. Of the 3,090 deaths recorded, a third (1,037) occurred on this route, which departs from North Africa towards Formentera or Ibiza, islands known for their tourist appeal. The contrast of migrants arriving on beaches packed with tourists, in what for them represents their dream destination, is one of the images that best encapsulates the contradictions of the modern world. The majority of fatalities (1,906) continue to occur on the route from Africa to the Canary Islands, although this year there has been a significant decrease compared to last year. It should be noted that 2014 was a record year, when more than 10,000 people drowned trying to reach Spanish shores. According to the latest figures from the Ministry of the Interior, irregular migrant arrivals to Spain fell by 40.4% compared to 2014, with an even steeper decline in the Canary Islands, where it reached 59.9%. However, we cannot ignore such a painful reality, even though Europe has often believed that the best way to avoid encouraging these journeys is to abandon these people to their fate. We recall that high-seas rescue initiatives like the one carried out by the Catalan NGO Open Arms are condemned by the far right, from Salvini to Vox. Throughout its history, the ARA has documented some of these rescue operations with journalist Cristina Mas and photographer Xavier Bertral, and the conclusion is always the same: it's naive to think that people won't risk their lives to reach Europe by putting themselves in the hands of criminal gangs when they see no future, no opportunities, in their homeland.

A hush hung over the Pedralbes Palace in Barcelona this Friday before the meeting of foreign ministers of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM). Since In mid-October, the peace plan sponsored by Donald Trump in Gaza was finalized., Europe has abandoned the forceful stance with which it condemned the genocide in Gaza last summer. And it buries its head in the sand while Israel violates the ceasefire in the enclave. But the ministerial meeting of the organization's 10th Regional Forum has held a mirror up to European foreign ministers and their counterparts in the southern Mediterranean basin, who have denounced Israel's impunity and called for a lasting political solution in the Gaza Strip.

The Mediterranean is a corner of the world experiencing many simultaneous crises: the genocide in GazaClimate change, migration and inequality, and the drift towards authoritarianism. Cities are the battleground where all these crises converge. And they are also spaces where, faced with the incapacity of states, solutions are sought. We spoke with four mayors from cities in the region who are participating in the annual assembly of the MedCities network in Barcelona. Up to 91 city representatives have sealed their commitment to cooperate in a declaration in which they pledge to act at the municipal level on issues such as peace, climate, economic development, and human rights.

Oscar Camps (Barcelona, ​​1963) was shocked in September 2015 when he saw the image of Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian refugee child who drowned on a beach in Turkey as his parents tried to bring him to Europe. He owned a lifeguard business and decided to go to the Greek island of Lesbos to do what he knew how to do: save lives in danger at sea. Ten years later, the NGO Open Arms is one of the leading humanitarian rescue organizations in Europe, having saved more than 72,000 lives. These times have been full of life experiences and have contributed to shedding light on the Central Mediterranean, bringing journalists from all over the world aboard the ship, including those from the ARA. He reviews this decade in an interview aboard the ship Astral, in the port of Barcelona.

Twelve grams. That's the weight of a baby loggerhead sea turtle at birth. These chelonian reptiles normally breed on the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean, where both the sea and the coasts where they nest are rising. And this species is highly sensitive to these changes, which result in fewer males being born, which could have a disastrous outcome for the species. To avoid this fate, the loggerhead sea turtle has begun to colonize the west, in search of cooler temperatures for reproduction.

From Greek amphorae to industrial containers, from Zheng He to James Cook, from sirens to the kraken... Everything you want to know about the sea, the fables and truths of what humanity has been able to know, has been explained in an entertaining and informative way by the Italian historian and writer Ales History of the Sea: Myth, Culture, and Science (Ático de los Libros, 2024). Although it has 665 pages, it is an addictive book, which can be read in chronological order—from the first single-celled organisms that seem to have managed to live in the first sulfurous ocean 4 billion years ago to the yellow rubber duckies that have ended up on the great plastic "continent" that chapters depending on the reader's interest in pirates, explorers, the relationship between walrus hunting and the discovery of Greenland, or, for example, the great naval battles in history.

Rising temperatures, human pressure, overfishing and pollution are leading to Mother Nostrum at a point of no return. There are many scientific voices warning.

"You can't write the history of Italy between 1200 and 1500 without looking at the Catalans and their ambitions," explains British historian David Abulafia (Twickenham, 1949). Emeritus professor of Mediterranean history at Cambridge University, he is the author of essays translated into Spanish as The discovery of humanity, The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean andA sea without limits. A human history of the oceans. Now, for the first time, it can be read in Catalan, with The struggle for dominance of the Mediterranean. The great Catalan expansion from 1200 to 1500 (Sails and Winds). In the book, translated by Oriol Ràfols, the historian addresses the conflicts that occurred in the Mediterranean between 1200 and 1500 for political and naval supremacy and for control of its center, Sicily, and southern Italy.

Patrici Bultó, a marine biologist, has retired in 2025 after 30 years at the Aquarium, where he worked as technical director and director of biology. "I love sharks," he says. And it shows in the passion with which he speaks not only about sharks, but about the entire seabed. Although he is concerned about the impact of climate change, he remains hopeful about humanity. "Good things have been done, like banning the killing and eating of sharks. If this has been done, it means other things can be done."

Ocean Viking, the rescue ship of the French NGO SOS Mediterranée, began to disembark 572 people, including 183 minors, survivors of the daily drama in the Mediterranean, now far from the media spotlight, at midday in Sicily. They were rescued in six boats in the waters separating Libya from Malta, most of them in the rescue zone under the responsibility of the European island, and after a week at sea they will be able to disembark in Italy. The largest was a fishing boat carrying 369 people. Last Saturday another dinghy boat sank off Tunisia, leaving at least 43 dead and 83 survivors. On Spain's southern border, more than 2,000 people have died this semester, as announced this week by the NGO Caminando Fronteras. They are only the first steps of a summer that will again fill the waters of the Mediterranean, the most unequal border on the planet, with deaths.

At least 43 people have disappeared in Mediterranean waters after sinking off the coast of Tunisia. They were on board a precarious boat that had been rented by a people-smuggling mafia and had left the Libyan coast a few hours before heading towards the Italian island of Lampedusa. Strong winds, overweight, waves and currents, however, caused the boat to capsize and drift to the Tunisian coast, a country bordering Libya. A Red Crescent representative told Efe that 84 more people were on board, mostly from Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Bangladesh, who were rescued and transported to the mainland, where they received first aid before being handed over to local authorities for processing.