The Government is getting down to work on implementing the Statute of Rural Municipalities, a legal framework promoted during the last legislature and approved this summer, which aims to curb depopulation in a large part of the country. This Saturday, President Salvador Illa and four ministers traveled to Món Sant Benet, in Sant Fruitós de Bages, to meet with more than 300 mayors and representatives of county councils and municipal organizations. During this meeting, the Executive announced several measures, most notably a grant program to rehabilitate disused buildings in the country's least populated municipalities. With this measure, the Government plans to rehabilitate 400 homes between now and 2029. The grants, totaling 20 million euros, will be directed towards the rehabilitation of both vacant private homes and abandoned public buildings in the 608 towns included in the Statute. The Catalan government will pay for part of the rehabilitation, and the owners will have to commit to renting the property as affordable housing for 10 years. This measure aims to fulfill the regional housing plan, which stipulates that within 20 years, 1.3% of primary residences must be affordable rentals. The viability of measures like this, however, largely depends on the approval of the budget, and so far, the government has not begun budget negotiations. The ERC and Comuns parties, the governing coalition partners, are pressuring Isla to ensure that, before sitting down to negotiate, he fulfills the agreements on financing and housing. Among the announcements, the creation of a rural housing pool and a new service within the Catalan Land Institute (Incasòl) stands out. This new service will assist municipalities in processing and managing urban planning and collaborate on the rehabilitation of disused buildings.

"Local governments need support." The Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau, made these remarks in Parliament during the debate to approve an extraordinary fund which, added to the local cooperation fund, brings the total amount the Generalitat (Catalan government) has injected into local entities this year to 170 million euros. This money should allow them to pay bills at a time when utility prices are rising and interest payments to banks continue to increase. The need to resort to these kinds of mechanisms to guarantee essential services in municipalities highlights one of the major problems facing local governments: the lack of a stable, predictable, and sufficient funding framework to cover the costs of the services they provide.

I'm writing from a mountainous landscape, past the Toses pass, among trees of warm colors, a prelude to winter. Leaving the AP-7 and the Eix Transversal has made me confront the stark reality of the half of Catalonia's municipalities that are losing population. You can see it from the roads: the closed restaurants, the shops with empty signs, the lack of life on the streets.

The statute for rural municipalities has been approved, a law that should help curb depopulation in Catalonia. This law will affect 608 municipalities—out of a total of 947 in Catalonia—with fewer than 2,000 inhabitants and aims to give them tools to reverse the territorial imbalance the country is currently experiencing: 75% of the population lives in urban areas, while the remaining 25% live in rural areas. This law is the first that Salvador Illa's government has sent to Parliament for approval, although it was promoted by the previous government, led by Pere Aragonès. The law was approved this Wednesday with the support of all parliamentary groups except Vox.

Barcelona, ​​​​although it is the most populated city in Catalonia, is not the largest city in the country. In fact, it is not even the largest in its district. Tremp, with an area of ​​302.8 square kilometers and 6,015 inhabitants, is the largest municipality in Catalonia. But which is the largest in the Barcelona district? It is Sant Mateu de Bages, which has only 637 inhabitants, but an area of ​​102.9 km². The municipal area of ​​​​the capital covers 101.3 km².