Elisenda Carrera is no longer a councilor for Ara Vic. The Vic City Council reported this Wednesday that the Ara Vic councilor has formally requested to leave the political group and become a non-attached councilor. The decision comes the day after Xavier Farrés, the other councilor for the Vigatan group of the defunct PDECat, announced that they would expel him if he did not leave the city council, at a press conference in the consistory accompanied by other members of the party's executive. His departure comes as a result of rumors, as the ARA reported, which place her as the possible candidate for Aliança Catalana in Vic in the next municipal elections. "Our patience has run out," Farrés states in conversation with the ARA.

It is quite likely that the rise of Aliança Catalana reflected in mea culpa, more than one party and union will assume at least part of the responsibility. The most significant element of the shift we are discussing is, therefore, that a part of the pro-independence electorate has stopped prioritizing the national issue almost exclusively to begin emphasizing the issues listed before: immigration (perceived as excessive), security (repeat criminal offenses, etc.), or the preservation of ways of being and existing (the clothing of some Muslim women, etc.). According to CEO data the number of responses reinforcing the impression that there are more immigrants in Catalonia than actually live there has doubled... in just one year! We are therefore not facing a percentage anecdote, but a real change of direction. These perceptions –not necessarily correlatable with objective data– are the perfect fuel for any political formation that decides to articulate discontent in terms of cultural protection and defense of the territory.

The results shown by the survey published today by ARA, with all the precautions that a poll taken when no election is in sight entails, depict a profound and very worrying alteration of the Catalan party map. Basically, what is seen is a strong setback for the traditional centre-right parties, Junts and PP, who are overtaken by more radical and openly Islamophobic parties such as Aliança Catalana and Vox. The result is a much more polarized country with less room for broad consensus, and politically much more difficult to govern.

The results shown by the survey published today by ARA, with all the reservations that a poll conducted when no election is in sight entails, outline a profound alteration of the Catalan party map in a very worrying sense. Basically, what is seen is a sharp decline of the traditional centre-right parties, Junts and PP, which are surpassed by more radical and openly Islamophobic parties such as Aliança Catalana and Vox. The result is a much more polarized country with less space for broad consensus, and politically much more difficult to govern.

This time we have had a more representative May Day compared to some of the preceding years. In the events called for by the unions, the emotional chord was struck deeply, in mobilizations that respond to a specific political and social situation and that carry a clear message. The main celebration was held in Malaga for various reasons, starting with the fact that Andalusia votes on May 17. The call has allowed for an image of a certain unity of the left, which we already know does not exist in political terms. However, it has become clear that there are indeed essential points of coincidence, susceptible of becoming driving ideas for future initiatives, especially as the general elections approach. The fact that María Jesús Montero and Yolanda Díaz coincided at the Malaga demonstration does not reduce their differences, but it does reflect a common denominator on key issues.

When Jordi Pujol created CDC in 1974, he was not only founding a party, but also articulating an entire social sector, caricatured by his adversaries as the shopkeeper, but which encompassed everyone from the middle and artisan classes to small business owners and the self-employed, as well as farmers and skilled workers. Pujol also endowed Convergència, and by extension CiU, with a political identity that pivoted on two key points: an unshakeable commitment to Catalonia, on the one hand, and a certain ideological flexibility and preference for pacts, on the other. This space evolved from a pragmatic nationalism, in favor of the peix al cove (fish in the basket), to independentism with Artur Mas and Carles Puigdemont. But it has remained, in its main coordinates, grouped around Junts. This political space is now in danger with the emergence of Aliança Catalana, which represents, from the far right, an amendment in its entirety to the Pujolista DNA.

It hasn't even been two years since Salvador Illa became president of the Generalitat, and the oasis of tranquility he enjoyed in his first months is beginning to look more and more like a mirage. For a long time now, protests in the streets have been added to the difficulties of governing in minority, with teachers being one of the most demanding groups. The ARA survey, conducted by YouGov, detects some electoral wear and tear for the PSC, but, despite everything, the socialists would consolidate their first position today if the elections were brought forward. There is no forecast of this happening, even though negotiations for the budget with ERC are still open, which adds a point of unpredictability to the calendar. The PSC would obtain between 36 and 42 seats and would see the second party in the Parlament no longer be Junts, the main victim in case of elections, but Esquerra (27-30).

In a country that is doing badly, with a minority Generalitat government and too many open fronts, one might think that Catalan sovereignty has a window of opportunity to regain prominence and raise the level of national ambition. Instead, the parties that led the Procés – Junts and ERC – are competing in their own ring, in a bubble that only interests their leaders, and setting aside national interest, which is what could truly propel them electorally. It is one thing that there is no strategic unity; and another is that the weekly squabbles between Rufián and Nogueras occupy the space and time that their respective parties should dedicate to taking advantage of the weakness of the PSC and the PSOE.This week, Junts has seized media prominence with a double refusal. The first – voting against the housing decree – is difficult to understand in a context of housing emergency, especially considering that the PSOE and Sumar were willing to negotiate fiscal measures for small landlords and self-employed workers. That Puigdemont's party has been so inflexible is explained by temperamental reasons (taking revenge on Yolanda Díaz for her theatrics) and tactical ones (making themselves valuable to the Catalan economic right). It is legitimate for Junts to want to regain the center-right space, but doing so at the cost of tenants' suffering is, at the very least, insensitive. Future elections will tell them if the gamble has been successful or not.It is more incomprehensible that Junts opposes the State-Generalitat investment consortium, a measure agreed upon by ERC with the PSOE to prevent unexecuted investments (systematically and scandalously) by successive Spanish governments from being lost. This can only be explained by absurd maximalism and by the desire not to give any success to adversaries, even if it reduces the Generalitat's resources and decision-making power. Furthermore, the terminology used by Nogueras (“We don't need another little stall”) seems more appropriate for other political options.However: instead of taking advantage of this slip-up to present themselves as the party of useful sovereignty, ERC has preferred, once again, to leave its narrative in the hands of Gabriel Rufián, who has turned it into a very low-tone comedy in the Congress tribune, focusing only on the housing issue (as if the investment consortium issue were too “local” for his audience) and engaging in unnecessary mockery of Junts deputies, which has allowed them to portray themselves as victims. And the Junts circle has upped the ante by comparing Rufián to Albert Rivera, and his discourse, to the logic of "A por ellos". Each episode of this farce is worse than the last. And meanwhile, the ERC leadership remains silent. Rufián gains and loses votes, we don't quite know to what extent, but his one-sided hostility torpedoes one of the party's assets: the ability to maneuver between the PSC and Junts, depending on the area of decision and the circumstances.I have always thought that Junts and ERC are two parties too consolidated for sovereignty to do without them. But a moment comes when it is legitimate to ask whether these kindergarten fights, which have been going on for a decade, are not a major obstacle – not to say the main obstacle – for a sovereignty that, at a social and popular level, shows much more maturity than its political representatives. We could say, as Estanislao Figueras did in 1873, that we are fed up with all of us. If this civil war continues (and it will continue as long as neither party is capable of devouring the other), perhaps one day it will have to be considered. Because parties are just tools, and in any trade, useless tools are either repaired or thrown away.

Opinion polls are the political translation of public opinion's mood at a given moment, and the snapshot that emerges from the poll we published these days in ARA is that of a restless society. It could be described as frustrated. The fact is that the symptoms it presents are those of a fearful society that reacts by turning to the most irate. Polls mark social trends, and in the YouGov poll, we see a government with a president who doesn't excite, but maintains, albeit slightly down, the expectations for the PSC, a Republican Left that would have hit rock bottom and would be on the rise, and a far-right that is soaring. Catalan Alliance places third in voting intention, Vox continues to advance, and both threaten Junts. The Junts supporters are immersed in a serious project crisis and would lose votes on the right and left.Clearly, the moment in which the fieldwork was done can always influence the responses, and in this case, it coincided with the presentation of Gabriel Rufián's personal project, which has leveraged social media communication and effective populism, whether in the Congress tribune or in videos with activist Vito Quiles. The result is that it boosts ERC and keeps it in second place.

I find it hard to understand that Junts' proposals to tackle the housing crisis involve re-deducting mortgage and rent expenses, because it is uninspired. A good part of the ideas on which Catalan cities have been built was driven by Convergència i Unió, in the eighties, and they were much braver. For example, when Josep Maria Cullell was Minister of Territorial Policy and Public Works with Jordi Pujol, the Institut Català del Sòl was created, and legislation was enacted so that its function would be to “promote the necessary actions, both in organizational and functional aspects, to allow the use of land in accordance with the general interest and to prevent speculation and promote the effectiveness of the right to enjoy decent and adequate housing”. With this instrument, the Generalitat and some city councils that were of the same school bought large sectors of land to turn them into good neighborhoods today: Fontajau in Girona, the Eixample of Martorell, Mas Lluí in Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Parc de l’Alba in Cerdanyola... and so many others. Afterwards, in 1996, still with Jordi Pujol at the helm, the law on registration and deposit of deposits was enacted, intended to boost the urban rental market and provide adequate information on the situation of the rental housing stock. It was then determined that the deposit of deposits would be used for public housing construction without this having to compromise public budgets, solely relying on there being a consistently positive balance between cancellations and refunds. Taxes are the basic instrument for guaranteeing redistribution and, therefore, equity within a democratic society, but lowering taxes for everyone equally may not be egalitarian. Several studies show that providing incentives to further promote homeownership only helps to increase inequalities. The OECD, in a recent report on housing and taxes, concludes that the tax deduction for mortgage interest has proven to be regressive and ineffective, because those who own a home have access to capital and stability that renters do not have.

The spokesperson for ERC in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, recited on Wednesday, one by one, from the rostrum, the names of all the Junts deputies who had voted against the decree on rent extensions. He did so with a 50-euro banknote unfolded on the lectern and after saying that it was Junts' only "flag." This public singling out was followed by an attempted assault on the Junts deputy and former mayor of Girona, Marta Madrenas, and the publication of false information on social networks suggesting that all Junts deputies had rental income from properties.

The Congress has rejected the validation of the so-called housing law approved two months ago by the Council of Ministers. The norm provided for, among other urgent measures, the extension of rental contracts expiring before December 31, 2027, a 2% cap on renewals to curb abusive increases, and protection mechanisms for vulnerable people facing evictions. These measures originate from Sumar initiatives included in a broader anti-crisis decree by the Spanish government, which also included aid such as tax reductions on energy and fuel. With the opposing votes of Junts per Catalunya, the People's Party, and Vox, these measures have fallen. The rejection is not a minor episode and, given the comments in the media and social networks, it has clear reputational effects for Junts, as it reinforces the ambivalence of their ideological positioning. With its fall, concrete instruments are lost which, despite being limited, offered some immediate relief to thousands of people. They did not solve the housing problem, but they contained its harshest effects.Junts has justified its opposing vote by arguing that the decree was insufficient and did not address the structural causes of the crisis. Furthermore, as on previous occasions, its spokesperson in Madrid, Míriam Nogueras, has argued that one cannot continue to endorse isolated initiatives without broader and sustained negotiation that takes seriously the fulfillment of investiture pacts and Junts' demands. This position may be understandable from a strategic perspective for the party and the country, but for the most critical sectors, it becomes problematic when it ends up blocking protection measures in a context of housing emergency.

The socialist Government of Salvador Illa is ostentatiously stumbling over education. It is not new. The republican government of Aragonès, with counselor González-Cambray at the head of the department, also stumbled over it. But in reality, and this is the most serious thing, it is the whole country, the whole society, the future of our country, that is stumbling over education.Let's go step by step. Look at this page: Salvador Illa assumes the challenge of teachers. The president defends the agreement with CCOO and UGT and without USTEC. We have a labor dispute with the teachers that in the month and a half remaining of the course will provide us with 17 days of various strikes, about five per school center. So we have a Government that is playing hardball (negotiating stance) but which has made the mistake of overestimating the importance of a pact with unions that, in education, are not the majority. This, at a time when almost half of the aspiring teachers have failed the aptitude test. Only 54% of students have passed the exams to be able to take the selectivity exam and access education degrees. The good part is that we have tests that filter the most capable students. The bad part is that such generally low grades say something worrying about how competent students arrive at our universities.While we are still pondering this news, we turn the page and find that the industry warns that with the current training they cannot fill 15,000 positions a year. In other words, we have jobs, but we don't have prepared people. And Catalan industry has been like this for decades. Well, it is in the midst of all this that the Government wants to incorporate Mossos into schools, in plain clothes, to help teachers with security and mediation tasks. The debate in Parliament yesterday went like this: Salvador Illa: I accept that you don't see what this is about, I accept it. If I had seen what this is about, as president, I would say let's go ahead and do it throughout Catalonia. We are saying "let's do a proof of concept". This is what we are saying. And if the centers don't want to do it, it won't be done. What fear do they have of trying it?Mònica Sales : In schools, authority is needed, yes. That of the teachers, not that of the police. They already do a good job where it matters.Jéssica Albiach: These centers do not need police officers. What they need are psychologists, social educators, integrators, to lower the ratios, for the coordinators of coexistence and well-being to have exclusive dedication and specific training, and for the Plan against Child Poverty to work. That is what they need.Pilar Castillejo : You are assuming a mental framework and a way of doing things that is not characteristic of public school, but rather of the far right.Amidst a conflict with teachers, amidst very unpromising results from aspiring teachers or students in PISA tests, and from batches of graduates facing the labor needs of the industry, the Government opens the can of worms of having Mossos in schools and finds, of course, that teachers are asking for more specialists, not security personnel, no matter how much mediation they know how to do (which the Mossos do) and that it is done in other countries. It has been decades that something is not going well in the education of this country, which has to do with growing social complexity, the social valuation of the work of teachers, the constant changes in educational laws, the economic and material resources available, the unionization of their demands, the difficulty for dialogue in a world that feels unfairly criticized and is very susceptible to any external force. Finding trust and consensus to improve education is a matter of life or death for the country.Good morning.

Junts said no to the rental extension of Sumar-PSOE and we read in ARA that it is a risky stance, “because according to all the polls, housing is the main problem for citizens”. It is true. Renting or buying a flat is unaffordable, not just for young people. And paying rent or the mortgage too. But what would this extension have fixed?

Beyond petty politics and party strategies (in Junts they must be very sure of where they are going, voting what they vote), any debate about housing should start from this principle: people's right to decent housing is superior and must prevail over other rights, such as private property and its monetary exploitation. We can make it even broader: as a general principle, where individual rights collide with the common good, it is the individual right that must recede. Never the common good or society's interest. In a housing emergency, an individual —be it an individual, a real estate company, or an investment fund— does not have the "right" to speculate on rental and sale prices of homes. In a climate crisis, no one has the "right" to destroy the environment in the name of economic productivity, nor to question scientific evidence without valid arguments. In an epidemic, or pandemic, no one has the "right" not to get vaccinated, unless they assume that their decision endangers the health and lives of those around them (and they are indifferent to it). These are just a few examples.Some will call the previous paragraph communist, but it is not: it is simple social democracy and the welfare state, as we understood them not so long ago. The principle is simple: for societies to advance, they must do so collectively. If only a few benefit and many are harmed, there is no progress: there is regression. Illiberal, or turbo-capitalist, discourses are not an evolution of classical liberalism, but its degradation. The market, by itself, does not put everyone in their place, especially when the market is doped, inflated, and falsified in favor of very specific and describable interests. The retraction of democracy reveals another project, a new order conceived and commanded by global oligarchs with local servants in each country, imposing on rulers and populations a kind of natural selection based on money. This is nothing new in human history, but if for some decades we have prided ourselves on the West being the most advanced zone on the planet, it was precisely because we had worked in the opposite direction to all this.Trying to anchor this ideology in the figure of the good Catalan (or the good Mallorcan) who has worked his whole life like a beast and now has the right to do whatever he wants with the houses and apartments he has inherited from his grandparents, or that he has bought by speculating, is, to say the least, an indecent falsehood. Catalonia, precisely, has been a pioneer for having been a country built on the firm idea (and this one, indeed, liberal) of wealth distribution and collective improvement. In Mallorca, this idea has never existed, and that is why it is drowning in mass tourism with no alternatives in sight (and selling the grandparents' houses and apartments to the highest bidder, which curiously are vulture funds). The right to decent housing, let's repeat it, must prevail over the right to property.

Pedro Sánchez's path to the end of the legislature is getting complicated. In the last few hours, two of the key partners in the investiture majority, Junts and the PNB, have shown signs of distancing themselves from the Spanish government. While the Junts supporters joined the PP and Vox this Tuesday to overthrow the decree extending rents and the investment consortium agreed between the PSOE and ERC, the Basque nationalists suspended a meeting in Moncloa after a controversial message on social media from the PSE against Aitor Esteban. And all of this has served them to demand "respect" from Sánchez and issue him a warning in this morning's control session in Congress: "You will know how you want to reach the electoral call, whether you want company or not".

Yesterday Junts played hard in Congress. It overturned the investment consortium and the rental decree.Regarding the extension of rents, Junts reproached Sumar for having a "systematic allergy to all landlords". And regarding the consortium, it said that Catalonia does not need more "side businesses" but rather to receive the money it is owed.There is no surprise in Junts' position, on either issue. Regarding rents, Junts relies on the fact that, in Catalonia, 90% of the apartment rental market is in the hands of small landlords, and only 10% in investment funds. It seeks to position itself as a defender of the interests of tenants who bear the pressure of the historic lack of public rental supply. However, voting against this extension has a social cost that yesterday Gabriel Rufián solemnized with two gestures: displaying a banknote and pointing out the Junts deputies one by one. Gabriel Rufián: "Do you know what your flag is? Do you know what it is? I have it here. It's small, but it's very effective. And besides, one of the ones you like... Fifty bucks. It could be more. I'll leave it here. This is your flag. The one you share with the PP and with Vox. To screw almost three million people. I want people to know them. They are Josep Maria Cervera, Josep Pagès, Pilar Calvo, Isidre Gavín, Marta Madrenas, Josep Maria Cruset and Miriam Nogueras”.

Salvador Illa fails to calm the waters among the educational community. Unions have called for up to 17 days of strike over the next two months in protest of the agreement that the Government signed with CCOO and UGT, but not with USTEC. Salvador Illa's executive, however, despite the scale of the protest, does not plan to budge and has so far defended the pact signed a few months ago. In fact, it has invited the majority union, USTEC, to join it. "An agreement has been signed that is the best ever signed," stated the president of the Generalitat during Wednesday's control session in Parliament. These words are in addition to those spoken on Tuesday by the Government spokesperson, Sílvia Paneque, who made it clear that the Government will not amend the signed agreement, but will only put "arguments" on the table to convince USTEC, whom she also invited to join in "rolling out" this pact.

For many years, surely since its founding in 2017, Junts has been accused of not having clear ideological lines. With the 'Procés' and the metamorphosis of Convergència, the right-left axis blurred and the national agenda predominated in all cases. Almost ten years later, the codes of Catalan and Spanish politics are different and, especially in Congress, the voting agenda forces one to take a stand in debates that until now had been uncomfortable for the 'juntaires'. Not anymore: Junts has adopted a clear line on ideological proposals regarding housing that differs from the price controls proposed by the left, and is increasingly critical of Pedro Sánchez's government.

Two housing measures hang by a thread: the extraordinary extension of rental contracts ending between March 22, 2026, and December 31, 2027, and the limitation of the annual update of contracts to 2% to avoid inflation hikes due to the war in the Middle East. Both proposals are included in the Spanish government's decree to address, precisely, the economic shock of the war on housing, particularly on rents, and which the Congress votes on this Tuesday. Nothing suggests, however, that it will prosper.