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.

One of the objectives of the re-elected president of Foment de Treball, Josep Sánchez Llibre, is to "deepen the relationship with the Generalitat government" and build "a space for deep and permanent dialogue". At the start of his third term, once the statutory limit of two that existed before was abolished, Sánchez Llibre looks towards the government of Salvador Illa.

In terms of budgets, it could be said that Catalonia is not (really) Spain. The balance of parliamentary forces will allow for them before summer. Specifically, so that they can be approved by Parliament in July. It only remains for ERC, which has convened a national council for Monday, to give it the go-ahead. The situation is perceived in the happy faces of some government members, especially the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero.

The Generalitat is entering a new phase to launch the first chip design and prototyping center in Catalonia. The Government established this Monday theThe new board will be the driving force behind the center, dedicated to "making Catalonia a key player" in the semiconductor and advanced chip sector, essential for achieving European technological autonomy, according to the Generalitat's statement. The Government already awarded the basic engineering project to build the space to the IDP group in January, for approximately 2.6 million euros. The final construction project, as well as the executive commission, is expected to be awarded this summer.

Up to 1,300 euros are being claimed by the Department of Social Rights from a young person with a high degree of dependency who has entered a special employment center and, therefore, should not have continued to receive the fixed economic benefit. But since bureaucracy is not prepared to automate changes, the order for the transfer of aid continues to arrive, accumulating an amount that for the family "is as if it didn't exist", it is not touched. This is one of the examples that explain what the Generalitat calls "undue payments" and which are mainly due to errors or the slowness of the administration; whether, as in the young person's case, due to incompatibilities, a downward revision of a dependency degree, or the death of the beneficiary. Last year alone, the ministry requested the repayment of 10,665 of these debts.

There is a sector in the State that is living a golden age, which is growing without yet having comprehensive regulation and which is increasingly relevant in the decision-making process of governments and Parliaments: public affairs consultancies. A type of bridge between the public and private worlds, which is unknown territory for a good part of the population and which in recent years has been proliferating strongly in Madrid, but also in Barcelona, ​​due to political fragmentation, the ever-increasing complexity of decision-making processes and the rise of economic and geopolitical crises. What do these companies do, however? Is it a professionalized sector? Why is it fertile ground for former politicians? El ARA has X-rayed the main companies established in the State, speaking withpeople from within the sector, professional associations, politicians, and also experts who point to the lack of regulation as the main problem.

The Secretary of Mobility and Infrastructures of the Generalitat, Manel Nadal, admitted today that Barcelona needs "at least five or six bus stations and interchanges" to cope with the strong demand the sector has experienced in recent years, and more especially since January, when the Rodalies crisis broke out. He said this at an event organized by the sector's employers' association, Fecav, which this Tuesday presented – together with the Terminus Transport Studies Centre – the book L'autobús i l'autocar a Catalunya, the first publication to cover the entire history of the sector, written by expert Joan Carles Salmerón. At the event, the Secretary of Mobility addressed the assembled entrepreneurs, to whom he also set homework.

The Generalitat de Catalunya, through Fira 2000, is negotiating the purchase of the offices in the administrative district of the Zona Franca from the company AXA, where various departments have been located since 2020. Three meetings have already taken place, and very soon, in May, there will be a fourth meeting. These negotiations aim to put an end to 11 years of shadows surrounding this operation promoted in 2015 by the owner of the Zona Franca land, Fira 2000, a commercial company whose majority shareholder (53.6%) is the Generalitat and which also includes the participation of the city councils of Barcelona and L'Hospitalet and the Diputació de Barcelona.

It was one of the reasons that generated the most warnings from train drivers during the peak moments of the railway crisis: the number of trees that fell on or very close to the train tracks has forced Adif to cut down 13,680 trees between January and March. The rain and wind storms Harry and Ingrid exposed the weakness of the Catalan railway network in the face of meteorological inclemencies, and this is reflected in Adif's statistics. Of the total trees felled during this period, the infrastructure manager removed 8,380 as part of its usual vegetation control plan and an additional 5,300 trees as part of the emergency plan for the storms. The most affected area was the Maçanet-Portbou route, in the north of the country.

"In this new phase, we do not think a Catalan unity government is convenient. We must consolidate the institutions and accustom the country to the presidency of the Generalitat, but the time has come to govern". He probably did not imagine he would do so for 23 consecutive years, but the day after the 1980 elections, a triumphant Jordi Pujol was already beginning to envision that his main mission should be the creation of autonomous Catalonia. This year marks 46 years since Pujol was invested president, and it so happens that he has now been out of government for as many years as he spent at the head of the Generalitat.