The Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, is appearing this afternoon in Parliament to explain the Generalitat's incredible failure to organize the PISA tests. As we know, the story could not be more lamentable, no matter how you look at it: the OECD warned in March. No information was given until July, until a Friday at the end of July, to be exact, when they sent a director general to face the music and not the minister, and they describe an error in the sample of students examined, which far exceeds any explainable decimal error, as a specific and technical problem.As we explain today, the alteration of the PISA sample in Catalonia far exceeds that of any country in the latest report. It reminded me of the day when the Generalitat, under the presidency of Pere Aragonès, did not know how to correctly convene a competitive examination. With the difference that this PISA issue is an international embarrassment. And I prefer to believe it was a (serious) fiasco rather than have to think it's a way to circumvent results that will be poor given the problems that have been affecting Education in Catalonia for years. It is enough to remember that we finished the course amidst strikes and we will start it the same way. The problem with Education is in the classrooms, which are a reflection of all of society's problems, in the training of teachers, in the authority of principals, in the tension of an inclusive school that lacks the means to be worthy of the name, in a Catalonia that has been getting poorer, etc. But something is happening in the Department of Education and, by extension, in the Government, when it signs a union pact that inflames the unions, closes an agreement with the OECD to improve teaching, and, one year later, makes a big mistake in the sample for the PISA tests. And in another order of indignation, we have the multitudinous demonstration yesterday in Palma de Mallorca against the excess of tourism that has led the island, like the rest of the Balearic Islands, to collapse. There is no need for many explanations as to why the protest, because in Catalonia we know well what tourist collapse is, which affects ecology, mobility, housing, culture, language, etc. The manifesto of the call has a quite explicit paragraph on the effect of tourism: “It invaded our coasts, then our towns and our cities and is currently occupying our homes. Mallorca cannot fit any more hotels, cannot fit any more coffee franchises, fast food or cheesecakes, and cannot fit any more tourists! Mallorca at its limit! Less tourism, more life!” Such a demonstration is a sign that must be listened to and attended to with urgency. But everything suggests that it will not be so, for now, because the Balearic government and tourist interests are one. The proof is what happened in the end:

The Rodalies crisis has triggered demand for buses as a mobility alternative, and this, in turn, is saturating some points in Barcelona. Fabra i Puig, Gran Via and also the Maria Cristina area, on Diagonal, have been suffering for months from the effects of an avalanche of alternative plans that, added to the interurban bus lines, are overwhelming mobility. Solving the underlying problem requires rethinking the model, building new stations and interchanges; that is, years of constructing new infrastructure. Therefore, while that doesn't happen, Barcelona City Council and the Generalitat have decided to take a first step to try to "ease up," at least, the Diagonal corridor.

Today, to start, we have a government crisis. The new Minister of Social Rights is called Raúl Moreno, until now general secretary of the department. He replaces Mònica Martínez Bravo, who lived in Madrid and worked in Catalonia, and who requested relief from President Illa. At the handover ceremony, Illa remarked that it was a change of minister but not of policies. As Aleix Moldes explains today, this will not be the last government reshuffle where the Minister of Health, Olga Pané, currently on leave due to a fractured fibula, will not finish the term, nor will super-minister Sílvia Paneque, who will be sent back to her city, Girona, to try to regain the mayorship for the socialists. It is worth noting that Girona is a state-level mayoralty, because the relationship with the Spanish royal family will not be fully normalized in Catalonia until the awards named after the Crown heiress, the Princess of Girona, can be held in the city.It is clear that, due to a government crisis, that of the United Kingdom, which yesterday premiered a prime minister, the Labourite Andy Burnham, who in a speech without a lectern or teleprompter pledged to "make politics work, and work better", promised a new political model and a new economic model, to reindustrialize the United Kingdom. Burnham went straight to the point: the cost of living must be reduced, homelessness must be ended (he went to prepare breakfasts at a shelter for homeless people in London), in short, to get the United Kingdom out of a crisis that we also know here, but which there has the specificity of Brexit. It has been a bad deal: think that since the United Kingdom left the European Union (now, in June, it was 10 years ago) they have had seven prime ministers, and Burnham, specifically, is the fourth prime minister of Charles III in less than 4 years. Charles III succeeded his mother in September 2022, now four years ago, and began his reign with Liz Truss (who only lasted 45 days), Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, and now Andy Burnham. The fourth in less than four years is a clear sign of political instability derived from national disorientation, inflation, stagnant wages, lack of affordable housing, or the deterioration of public services.There are no perfect countries, they all carry a backpack or another; what do I have to tell you about Catalonia that you don't know. Today the day began with train traffic interrupted between Lleida and La Plana-Picamoixons due to a cable theft, as reported by Adif. An incident that happens every two by three, and which speaks, above all, of the abandonment in which Spain has kept its railway network in Catalonia for decades.In the last few hours, the Football World Cup has given the idea of Spain the possibility to look in the mirror and like itself, to make the speech of "When Spain plays, we all play", of the inclusive nation. This is the pleasant part of the Spanish message these days. But the nationalist discourse soon appeared, consisting of saying that it was enough to go around the world with complexes and that young people went out into the street without complexes. Let this comment from the newspaper this comment from the newspaper La Razón.Come on, cover yourselves a little. The idea of a unified and Castilian Spain has never had complexes (with a slight exception, a tactical withdrawal at the beginning of the Transition due to an apparent bad conscience due to the association between Spain and Francoism). For the rest, Spain goes its own way, with its language, investments, and blocking of any legal recognition of its plurinationality. And, on the other hand, let's understand each other: they present it as a success of the idea of Spain that people go out to celebrate the successes of the only team, when it is the only possible team, the "normal" one, which is normal because it is mandatory for athletes under penalty of losing their federative license to play. The only uninhibited thing is the nerve they have.

Catalonia aims to make the definitive leap into the market in the quantum industry. After years focused on "generating knowledge," in the words of the Secretary of Digital Policies of the Generalitat, Maria Galindo, the country is experiencing a moment of "quantum effervescence" that allows it to aspire to compete with international powers. According to a sectoral report prepared by Acció, the agency for business growth of the Department of Business and Labour, this industry invoiced 91.4 million euros in 2024 – the last year with definitive data; a limited figure, but one that the sector celebrates within the framework of still incipient deep technology.

Increase productivity. The Government sets this as a priority in order to continue growing the Catalan economy. In the annual report published by the Department of Economy and Finance, the Generalitat points out that "despite the intense process of accumulation of physical capital and labor", the per capita income of the country is growing "more weakly than the European Union average over the last quarter of a century". "This paradox therefore points to an inefficient evolution of productivity", indicates the study, which recognizes that total factor productivity (TFP) – the reference indicator for measuring productivity – "shows a worse trajectory" than that observed in the European Union.

The Generalitat has approved this Tuesday its new business innovation strategy for the period 2026-2030. The Government's new roadmap for innovative activity in the country will activate an investment package of 78 million euros this year alone, 30% more, to accelerate research and development in the territory, train and attract the necessary technological talent, or facilitate the business adoption of disruptive technologies. According to the executive's calculations, public investment dedicated to the sector will mobilize private capital worth 3.7 times more; that is, about 300 million euros. The first call, as explained by the executive, will open next week, with an available amount of 17 million euros.

The testimonies of companies that chose to set up in Aragon and not in Catalonia after the pandemic caused a lot of controversy and reached Parliament. “The political and technical agility of the Aragonese government is brutal: if you call them, they are already receiving you within 48 hours, and they move very quickly,” explained the representative of a company to ARA. “Between opening a warehouse in Lleida or opening it in Fraga, which is right next door, there is a big difference in advantages,” assured another person.

More than 32 out of every 100 euros that the State lends to the autonomous communities to pay pending bills, through extraordinary financing instruments such as the regional liquidity fund (FLA) since 2012, are received by Catalonia. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Finance, the figure currently reaches, after distributing resources up to the third quarter, 170,152.1 million euros out of a total of 526,598.82 million for all autonomous communities. But the ranking changes when the amount is calculated per inhabitant. In this case, it is the Valencian Community that is at the forefront, especially after the resources to mitigate the effects of the storm in the autumn of 2024.

Catalonia continues to expand its computing capacity to tackle the advance of artificial intelligence. The company Submer Group, based in Barcelona, will invest more than 1 billion euros to install a new data center in Flix (Ribera d'Ebre). The technological infrastructure will be located on the grounds of the former Ercros chemical plant. The center, as the company assured in a statement, will be "sustainable and state-of-the-art," and will dedicate its activity to boosting investment in AI-based applications and services.

Currently, the European Union (EU) is moving towards so-called strategic autonomy, which means doing everything possible to be less dependent on third parties, especially the United States and China. The club of twenty-seven is promoting this in all areas. The COVID pandemic taught us that leaving the production of items ranging from masks to hand sanitizers to prevent infections in the hands of other countries or trading blocs poses a very high risk, both for access to products and for the prices that must be paid in cases of urgent need. Geopolitical crises also cause disruptions in supply chains when there is a high dependence on materials and products from certain countries. Europe has been able to verify this with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The Generalitat activates the creation of a "sovereign public cloud" in Catalonia to strengthen Catalan digital autonomy. The executive of Salvador Illa has opened the tender for the contract this Tuesday, with an estimated total value of up to 481 million euros during the first eight years, although the objective is to "maintain it once this period has passed". The new infrastructure will allow hosting 40% of the Catalan administration's digital services and data to "comply with the highest level of European sovereignty achievable today". According to the Government's forecasts, the service will come into operation during the second half of 2027 and will be fully operational during the third quarter of next year. The Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau, has highlighted the capacity of the new Catalan cloud to "protect and store" citizens' data and public services.

The Parliament demands "immediately" the transfer to the Generalitat of the properties and health facilities located in Catalonia that continue to be state-owned. The motion, promoted by ERC and approved with the votes of all groups except Vox and the PP, which voted against it, gives the Catalan executive a maximum of six months to prepare and present a fully updated inventory of all properties of the Generalitat's health system that are not its own. The report must specify the legal status, the registry status, the estimated asset value, the net book value of the assets, and the investments made by the Catalan administration.

The Generalitat's flagship housing plan —and arguably one of the most significant of the legislature— is to add 50,000 protected homes to the public stock by 2030. Salvador Illa's strategy involves identifying plots of land ready for construction and then offering them to municipalities and developers. This Wednesday, the Government has put out to tender 16 of the 59 plots with capacity for fewer than 20 homes each that the executive has included in its plan. As ARA has learned, this week it will release 8 more of the same type, bringing the total to 24 plots.

Yosef Faradji continues to be the most indebted taxpayer with the Generalitat. This person, of whom further details are unknown, already headed the list of individuals and legal entities that have debts with the Catalan public coffers last year. The amount owed has gone from 52.3 million euros a year ago to 65.2 million now as a consequence of accumulating interest. The main debtor among companies also does not change, bingo PlayBadalona, with 8.3 million, which has reduced its burden in the last year by one million euros.

Catalonia leads the Next Generation European funds allocated to autonomous communities, with a total of 10.180 billion euros since their launch in 2021, according to the latest data registered by the Department of Economy. This figure, announced by the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, during an event at the Palau de Pedralbes on the impact of these resources in Catalonia, has allowed, he explained, "to drive an economic, social, and environmental transformation that has contributed to economic growth".

Antonio has been living with his apartment propped up for four and a half months, right on Gran Via in Barcelona. At the end of January, the ceiling of his room collapsed due to water leaks, and the Fire Department recommended keeping the props in place until a definitive repair could be made. A few weeks later, the same thing happened in the hallway, and shortly after, in another essential room of the house, the bathroom. The property owner fixed his bathroom, but this week the props are still holding up the beams in the bedroom and the hallway.

Since this Tuesday, the Vatican flag has been flying on the facade of the Palau de la Generalitat and also on that of Barcelona City Hall. The Government has fully committed to the institutional visit that Pope Leo XIV is making to Catalonia – the first stop was this weekend in Madrid and will end the week in the Canary Islands – and the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, is accompanying the pontiff throughout his stay, from the moment he disembarked the plane on the very same runway. The visual proof that the Government wants to give its all for this visit is that it has also hung the flag on the facade of the Generalitat. Why?

The mayor of Tremp has worked for thirty years as a Catalan teacher. She began in municipal politics in 2007 and, when she became a deputy in the Parliament of Catalonia last term, she requested a compulsory leave of absence which she extended after the 2024 elections, when she was appointed delegate of the Generalitat in Alt Pirineu i Aran.

The State and the Generalitat have signed this Wednesday the agreements with ERC for the Catalan budgets at the Bilateral Commission they held in Madrid, which lasted less than an hour. The Republicans set this condition to have a guarantee of compliance with the pacts that depend on Pedro Sánchez's executive, among which is the creation of an investment company, that is, a company that will be approved by the Council of Ministers during this 2026 and will be participated by both administrations. This company will serve to "provide greater agility, flexibility and operational capacity" for the execution of studies, projects and works linked to infrastructures and other public investments, as the Government explained in a press release. In parallel, however, they are not giving up on the possibility of moving forward with a "State-Generalitat parity consortium for investments" which would depend on the Ministry of Transport. For this to prosper, however, it requires the approval of Congress, where the proposal derailed a few weeks ago due to the opposing vote of Junts.

The current CAP Passeig de Maragall, in the Sant Martí district of Barcelona, still appears today –half a century after Franco's death– in the name of the Spanish Falange (FET y de las JONS). Despite the Generalitat managing the center and assuming all maintenance costs, the registered ownership remains in the hands of the dictatorship's political apparatus. This is the most disconcerting finding of the research by historian Neus Moran, who documents how the State protected health heritage from Francoist plunder before the transfer of powers.