President Puigdemont has broken his silence to the media this weekend and has spoken about his return to Catalonia. It has been more than a year since he granted an interview to any Catalan media outlet and it remains the same, because he has granted the interview to the English newspaper The Sunday Times. The headline they have given it already explains that, for the international public, the Procés and its leaders seem so far away that it does not even put his name in the headline: “An exiled Catalan separatist has no regrets and considers returning to Spain”. And as a subtitle: “Carles Puigdemont has spent nine turbulent years away from home, during which he has suffered an arrest and lost his parents without having the opportunity to see them. Now he wants to «breathe reality» again”. The president in exile explained it this way, in this interview granted at his home, in Waterloo, a few kilometers from Brussels:Puigdemont: “The current Catalonia is not the same as it was when I left the country. During all this time I have tried to be in contact with my team and with the people, to understand exactly what is happening in Catalonia. But I know that it is not the same as smelling, touching, feeling, being among the people. This is my first intention when I arrive: to immerse myself in reality. To touch again. To feel, to smell the country”. When Puigdemont speaks publicly in this tone, it is clear that he now sees it closer than ever. And following the thread of his response, it is by feeling, touching, and smelling the country that he must decide if he wants to act as leader of the opposition to Illa and, above all, if he wants to run for the presidency again, or if Catalonia and the memory he has left behind have changed so much that he will not be able to turn the polls around.Meanwhile, this weekend Sánchez, Feijóo and Abascal have been through Catalonia. Sánchez to say that now everything is going much better thanks to Salvador Illa, Abascal to tell us that the problem is Islam and Feijóo to consider that we are material for a psychiatrist. Feijóo: “And I do not want a Catalonia trapped in a permanent loop, sitting on a psychiatrist's couch asking itself what it is. No, I do want to turn the page. I want you Catalans not to be the ones who pay the most taxes in Spain and the ones who receive the worst services. You cannot have a Rodalies that is sometimes scary and other times shameful. You cannot have the worst education in Spain, along with Ceuta and Melilla. You cannot have the highest crime rates. And you cannot accept that your industry is dismantled, whether it be called Seat, Ascó or Valdebeos. We will maintain the Catalan industry above all else”.Look, Mr. Feijóo, part of our financial problems come from the premeditated asphyxiation of which your party is one of the historic co-responsible parties. Asphyxiation that extends to the trains, for example: 34 years after the first AVE (Madrid-Seville), the Mediterranean corridor is still unfinished. And for you to suggest that we have a mental disorder that needs a psychiatrist is a very crude way of belittling the history of Catalonia and Spain. It’s a good thing you came to ask for our vote.Good morning.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo has returned to Ceuta for the fourth time. This time, however, he has done so accompanied by the president of the European People's Party, Manfred Weber, to reinforce the message of the Spanish conservatives regarding this migration crisis and to illustrate the calls to "Europeanize" this Spanish enclave in North Africa. The message from the two conservative leaders has gone in the same direction as that of the president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas: that the migrant minors who entered the autonomous city on July 30 and 31 must be returned to Morocco.

Sánchez says that “the Catalonia of 2026 resembles much more the one that the Catalans have always wanted.” Is there a single Catalan who wants a Rodalies service that makes their life impossible, courtesy of the disastrous state duo Renfe-Adif? Not to mention the AP-7 and, in general, the shameless percentage of non-compliance with the State investments budgeted for our country. It is one thing to come and hold rallies with rose-tinted arguments, and quite another to ignore the reality that tears down the speeches.The same thing happens to Feijóo. When he states that he wants Catalonia to lead “the reconstruction of Spain”, I wonder if he knows that 34 years after the first Madrid-Seville high-speed train, the Mediterranean corridor is still unfinished, or if he has ever heard of the fiscal deficit.Of course Feijóo doesn't care, because with the mentality of the little lords and owners of Spain that characterizes the PP, he doesn't even realize how insulting it is to hear him say, "I don't want a Catalonia in a permanent loop, sitting on a psychiatrist's couch, wondering what it is or what it is not."Treating Catalonia as if it had a mental disorder is not exactly a display of finesse. Every time it votes, Catalonia expresses that this supervised and underfunded autonomy falls short. Reducing the history of Spain and Catalonia to a transient mental alienation is of a very thick caliber, only suitable for colonial mentalities. If Feijóo is bothered by the question of what Catalonia is or is not, he has it very simple: let him ask directly and commit to respecting the result.

The leaders of the two main Spanish parties are in Catalan lands this Sunday. While the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, is at the PSC's Festa de la Rosa in Gavà, the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has visited the largest mayoralty they have in Catalonia, Badalona. As if he were in the middle of a campaign, aware of Catalonia's electoral weight, the leader of the Popular Party has called for gathering the support of a majority of Spaniards so that Catalonia can “unleash its strength again” and be a key territory in the “reconstruction of Spain”. “Catalonia is pushing for change,” predicted Feijóo during his speech this Sunday at the Festa de las Migas in Badalona, where all 6,000 tickets were sold out. From the third-largest city in Catalonia, he has defended the management of the mayor, Xavier García Albiol, and promised that, if he leads the Spanish government, Spain “will recover the protection of its borders and will recover the prestige of its passport”.

A month and a half after the massive arrival of immigrants in Ceuta, the crisis in the autonomous city continues to shape the agenda and the attacks in Spanish politics. However, as has happened in previous major catastrophes that Pedro Sánchez's executive has had to manage in coordination with PP-led regions, such as the DANA in the Valencian Community or the summer fires in Madrid and Castile and León, the debate is turning into a clash of competencies. A clear example is the situation of the immigrant minors who are still in Ceuta, of whom there are currently 2,084 registered and between 700 and 1,000 wandering the streets. Regarding the delicate situation a month and a half later, Sánchez was blunt: "Ask [Juan Jesús] Vivas about it," he said in statements upon leaving the Congress hemicycle. In other words, the Spanish president is pointing directly at the government of Ceuta.

"Giving away Spanish passports? [...] That is over" and "The passport must be earned". The phrases were spoken this July by Alberto Núñez Feijóo during his assessment of the year as leader of the opposition. Amid the controversy over the amnesty lawof the Spanish government, and immersed in a competition with Vox over the toughness of the rhetoric on immigration, the president of the PP was already proposing a tightening of the conditions for accessing Spanish nationality. Just two months later, and in the midst of a crisis in Ceuta, the Popular Party goes a step further: they are now proposing to withdraw nationality from Spaniards of foreign origin who commit serious crimes.

The entire PP leadership and the vast majority of the barons of the party had an appointment in Madrid this Monday: an informative breakfast by Juan Jesús Vivas at the Nueva Economía Fórum. The president of Ceuta traveled to the Spanish capital 39 days after the massive entry of migrants into the autonomous city that still marks the day-to-day of political news, and in the midst of multiplying political tension and crossed reproaches with the Spanish government. The person in charge of introducing him was Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who praised him for having “embodied like no one else the dignity of the State” and for acting as an “ideal president” to defend Ceuta in “times of unrest”. “You have a place in the hearts of millions of Spaniards”, he said.

The migration crisis in Ceuta represents yet another serious complication for a weary government, now without permanent allies, but led by a president determined to continue and finish the legislative term. The hypothesis of a miracle that would allow the socialists to rebuild alliances and projects for a new stage in power next year seems increasingly implausible. Thursday's debate in Congress highlighted the solitude of Pedro Sánchez, criticized by all the parliamentary forces. Yet once again he managed to remain standing, without falling exhausted onto the canvas. Feijóo tries to strike the socialist leader with ever more force and knock him down for good. There is no longer any kind of respect or consideration between the two. And despite this, the feeling always remains in the air that the president of the PP will have to keep waiting, because his blows—which would be quite forceful against other opponents—do not have much effect on Sánchez, who shows no signs of looking for any other way out than to stake everything on one card whenever he decides to call the next general elections.

Between May 17 and 18, 2021, 10,000 people entered Ceuta from Morocco in the last major migration crisis—up to the present—in the autonomous city. Coinciding with those dates, the mobile phone of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, was infected with the Pegasus spyware. So were those of the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles; the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska; and the Minister of Agriculture and former Spanish ambassador to Morocco, Luis Planas. Who spied on them? As with the mass entry this summer in Ceuta, the Spanish government claims it has no certainty, but from the first minute, internal investigations (and common sense) have pointed to the Moroccan secret services. This Thursday, from Congress, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, took the opportunity to recall it: "What document or clue was on your phone for you to behave this way? Why are you afraid of Morocco? What does Morocco know about you?".

Bus 37, past seven in the evening, was packed with people carrying Spanish flags who were approaching Plaza Cibeles in Madrid. There were quite a few who approached the driver –who answered kindly– to find out where it was best to get off to attend the rally in support of Ceuta. There was no specific pattern: people of all ages, young and old, who the moment they joined the mass of people already at the Puerta de Alcalá did not hesitate to shout the slogans: "Pedro Sánchez, son of a bitch" or "Resignation" of the Spanish government. In this way, in Madrid and dozens of other cities across Spain, thousands of people demonstrated over the crisis in Ceuta and turned the indignation over what is being experienced in the autonomous city into a cry against the Spanish government. A mobilization –called by the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP), presided over by the PP– that took to the streets the political message that the right wanted. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, José Luis Martínez-Almeida (PP) and Santiago Abascal (Vox) made an appearance at the Madrid rally, while some PSOE leaders also mobilized, ignoring the socialist leadership because they considered that this Wednesday, Ceuta Day, they had to take to the streets.

Throughout the month of August, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has let things happen. While the controversy over the luxury penthouse – purchased by the Community of Madrid – of the president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, grew week after week, he didn't say a word, neither to criticize her nor to defend her. This calculated silence ended in an interview with Europa Press in which he made a gesture that the popular party members know well: demanding internal explanations. A gesture that recalls what four years earlier cost the then popular leader, Pablo Casado, his position, and which precisely opened the doors to the leadership of the popular party for Feijóo.

It is clear that our society is largely made up of white people who feel, let's say, uncomfortable living with people of other colors or skin tones. Good people, no doubt, who are alarmed when they go out on the street and find that their neighborhood, or town, has been "filled" - that's their perception - with people of gradually darker pigmentation. The presence of these people makes them feel insecure, even more so if they are poor. This has a name: it is called xenophobia or racism, and also aporophobia. Aporophobic is not a word used in a derogatory sense, but racist or xenophobic is, and for this reason racists get very angry when they are called that. Being many, on the other hand, makes racism cease to be considered anomalous and become a normal, even banal, stance. Many would not go out to chase illegal immigrants through the streets, but they are bothered by an immigrant being ahead of them in the doctor's waiting room. Or that their children have to share classrooms with the children of these immigrants.Consequently, political options based on racism, xenophobia and aporophobia (from people arriving from outside, also from different ethnicities and religions, but with money, they never complain) are multiplying. In Spain, an absolutely electoral course begins and the Popular Party, in the words of Feijóo, has adopted the anti-immigration discourse of the hardest far-right: it already demands mass expulsions including minors, a demand that goes directly against the law – Spanish and European – and which has unsettled the barons of the PP: thus, while in Extremadura María Guardiola and her government speak of “complying with the law”, in Andalusia the moderate Moreno Bonilla gets bogged down in abstruse disquisitions to justify his submission to the government partners of Vox. The request to expel minors is not characteristic of any liberal center-right party, as Feijóo and his PP insist on presenting themselves. Quite the contrary, the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany could sign it without problems, which by the way is about to achieve a victory in the elections of the state of Saxony-Anhalt on September 6, which would mean a very hard blow and a regression to the worst moments of its history for both Germany and the entire European Union.Obviously, what happens in Spain and Europe will influence Catalan politics, which is not entering an electoral year but a pre-electoral one. Junts, with statements from its general secretary, Jordi Turull, has distanced itself from the far-right and racist Aliança Catalana with a commendable forcefulness. However, within Junts' circle, there are quite a few voices in favor of normalizing AC within the Catalan political system and reaching agreements with it. They justify this by appealing to the need to confront the onslaught of Vox and PP, an ultra-Spanishist bloc that until now they said was a scarecrow but which is now starting to frighten them. They forget, however, that AC does not add up with Catalan independence: it adds up with PP and with Vox, especially with the latter.

The umpteenth confrontation over Ceuta between the Spanish government and the PP revolves around the health situation and infections that are said to have been detected following the massive influx of migrants at the end of July. The Ceuta College of Nursing had warned of an increase in cases of gastroenteritis, scabies, and tuberculosis, which it linked to the overcrowded and unhygienic conditions in which some migrants find themselves. Now, the leader of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has asked the executive to study the isolation of affected migrants, but the Minister of Health, Mónica García, has rejected the request, arguing that it could be counterproductive. Instead, she urged Feijóo to demand that the Ceuta government immediately hand over all available spaces to house these people in sanitary conditions.

From Navaluenga, in Àvila, one of the provinces where fire has been burning uncontrollably in recent days, the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, insisted this Thursday on political unity "in response, prevention, and reconstruction" of the areas affected by the fires, and once again offered "the extended hand of the Spanish government" to reach "a country agreement" on climate emergency matters, an issue he considers paramount right now. That is to say, as he has done in his recent public interventions, Sánchez once again brought to the table the "State Pact against the Climate Emergency": a plan presented in September 2025 and expanded in December with 15 axes and 80 measures that has not yet seen the light of day due to a lack of political consensus.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo considers the legislature in Spain over, although he also assumes it will last a few more months during which he expects the PSOE's situation to worsen due to ongoing judicial investigations and its parliamentary weakness. "Pedro Sánchez faces his last Christmas at Moncloa. He deserves nothing less than the greatest possible electoral punishment because he has been a disgrace to this country," he stated this Wednesday in a press conference reviewing the political year. Between now and the next Spanish elections, the PP leader has hoped to team up more often with Junts and Vox in Congress to further undermine the Spanish Prime Minister. "We have voted the same way on 170 occasions," he stressed. In this regard, the PP leader argued that "it has been a month since [Sánchez] ignored that he has been politically dismissed," referring to the initiative approved in the lower house, with the votes of PP, Junts, and Vox, which called for the socialist leader's resignation. "He has gone from governing in a minority to governing against the majority, he has nothing left to give," he sentenced.

The PP's response to the European Court of Justice's (ECJ) endorsement of the application of amnesty to Carles Puigdemont is another demonstration of the strategy that Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party wants to apply in Catalonia. From Génova they argued that the focus on the "Procés" must be left behind to "open a new era that allows us to talk only about what Catalans need". "More housing, more doctors, lower taxes, and more security". This is the recipe that the PP leader already presented during the Catalan Popular Party congress three weeks ago. His aspiration is to ensure that the social and economic axis prevails over the national one and that his project is attractive, mainly with economic proposals, to voters from Junts, PSC, and Vox.

Don't think of an elephant... Did you think of one? Probably, yes. Now you must be wondering why this article starts like this, asking about an elephant, but the answer is simple: to show how the A-B-C of any electoral campaign operates and that it is key to winning elections. As George Lakoff theorized in his reference book Don't Think of an Elephant! (2004, Chelsea Green Publishing), whoever sets the framework for the debate and manages to talk about what they want and in the language they choose, has a high chance of taking victory at the polls. And this is the underlying battle that the PP and the PSOE have been fighting for months in Madrid, as whoever manages to impose the terms of public discussion is the one who comes out with an advantage for the next general elections. The confrontation is between two visions: those who brandish the ghost of corruption (the PP) against those who threaten with the ghost of neo-fascism (the PSOE).

The Libertas Forum is an initiative of the European People's Party that aims to build bridges of dialogue between Europe and Latin America and is made up of right-wing and center-right organizations, with a total of 60 parties from more than 40 different countries. And it was within the framework of the summit held in Madrid this Wednesday, before European and also Latin American leaders, that Alberto Nuñez Feijóo defined Pedro Sánchez as an "authoritarian president". In an inaugural speech in which he claimed "Western values" and the alliance with the United States against other states like China, Feijóo accused Sánchez, without explicitly naming him, of wanting to "control" key elements of the State and "threaten" democracy.

Spanish right-wingers have always had a certain complex regarding France. Seeing French national unity, apparently so well-tied, in contrast to a Spanish nation that has never been able to completely neutralize the peripheral differential facts, seems to make them feel inferior: why them and not us? It disturbs them to have as a neighbor a country that General De Gaulle left substantially structured after the war. If they had the dignity to think about who the reactionary forces entrusted with the structuring of the homeland (General Franco with a war) and to whom the French entrusted it, they would see that there is an abyss that should shame them, but they pretend not to remember. It is not surprising that when the Hispanic right-wing wants to build the nation, resentment emerges and the psychopathology of small and large differences flares up.

With Juanma Moreno Bonilla handed over to Vox, in the baron popular has lost, at least publicly, the moderate label it had earned by contrasting its ideological profile with that of Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The PP is convinced that if it wants Alberto Núñez Feijóo to reach Moncloa, it will have to be hand in hand with Vox. That is why the popular party has been paving the way for pacts with the far-right at the regional level and, in recent days, the popular leader has tried to join in. Of course, with his clumsy style and following a rather erratic line.