It has been six years since Seat presented its latest model, the fourth generation of the Seat Leon, probably the best car manufactured by Seat. Since then, however, those from Baix Llobregat have focused all their commercial efforts on the Cupra brand, which over the last few years has presented several new models (Born, Raval, Terramar, Tavascan, and Formentor). This policy of differentiating the Cupra brand from Seat has reached the point where even the Cupra Leon has received specific aesthetic updates to distinguish it ostentatiously from the model bearing the Seat logo.The current Seat range is based on the best-sellers Arona and Ibiza, the already veteran Ateca and the León, the only Seat with a plug-in hybrid version and eligible for an ecological sticker. Along the way, the Martorell brand has lost important models such as the Tarraco, has renounced the Seat Mó sustainable mobility division and agreements to manufacture scooters with Silence, and finally, the brand has not opted for mild hybrid or mild hybrid mechanics to improve the consumption and emissions of the Arona, Ateca and Ibiza, the brand's great commercial strongholds.Although Seat's commercial range is starting to age, the green numbers it presents at the end of each commercial year have allowed it to avoid – for the moment – the threat of closing shifts and production lines, as has happened with other brands in the Volkswagen group. Seat, despite everything and against all odds, is profitable and this has been, until now, its lifeline.The dismissal of Wayne Griffiths, a supporter of the Seat brand in Wolfsburg, and the impossibility of opening new lines of financing for new models, raise some questions regarding the brand's continuity. The leadership of the Volkswagen group is decisively committed to Cupra, and in fact, it is Seat's sports brand that has received technological and mechanical improvements from Volkswagen, while Seat does not have (and probably will not have) any electric car in its range. Griffiths' successor at the helm of Seat, Markus Haupt, now has the difficult mission of leading a new direction with goals, achievement indicators, and new horizons for Seat when it is not a priority brand for the Volkswagen group.The group's Cinderella

Seat has historically been a brand condemned to be the Cinderella of the Volkswagen group, far from the centers of power and decision in Wolfsburg and little valued in relation to Skoda, Audi or Volkswagen itself. In fact, Seat has never premiered any mechanics or technology from the group since it became part of the orbit of the Volkswagen group during the 1980s, but the current situation, with a long five-year wait to present new models (and probably some more years will still pass) is absolutely unprecedented.Following the outbreak of the Dieselgate case and the emissions scandal that fully implicated the Volkswagen group, the Germans decided to make a historic change of course, and practically overnight became a manufacturer fully focused on electric cars. In fact, the group has not introduced any mechanical improvements or new gasoline or diesel engines since 2019. It has maintained existing combustion powertrains and has bet on new fully electric models. More than six years later, however, the electric car market is still not fully mature, and Volkswagen has had to adjust the price of its new electric cars considerably to make them competitive against the great Chinese offensive.In this context of stagnation of new combustion engine models and a firm commitment to the electric car, the group's management has shown how Seat is not an industrial or commercial priority, and has relegated it to the only brand in the group without a fully electric car. The Volkswagen group's strategy has been to offer electric models with other features (and high prices) at Porsche or Audi, to position Skoda and Volkswagen as more or less accessible intermediate options for the general public, and to entrust Cupra with the role of an aspirational and sporty brand, which leaves Seat outside the brand's electrification roadmap.Seat is now facing one of the key moments in its history: it is seeking its own identity within the Volkswagen group and investments in research and development of new models that must serve to guarantee the brand's continuity. The Volkswagen group is very hesitant to comment on a possible expiry date for the brand and its total conversion into Cupra, but it has also not presented any future plan that includes new models (electric or not) for Seat. With an eye on the entry into force of emission limits for car manufacturers in 2027, it is difficult to imagine that Seat will be able to reverse the current situation and develop a new product range capable of homologating the new emission limits set by the European Union.Meanwhile, Seat continues to offer a range of products with reliable and proven combustion engines, practically perfect from a technical point of view, but which cannot compete in terms of consumption and emissions with its more modern rivals. Time is running out for the Martorell brand, which proudly and stoically maintains its market share, with the Ibiza and Arona bearing the brunt of Seat's sales and keeping the company's numbers in the black at the end of each fiscal year.

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Correction by the Martorell City Council government. Last November, the executive formed by Junts and the PSC approved the prohibition of filling jugs with water from the municipality's public fountains To prevent residents without access to tap water at home from taking it for domestic use, the city government, led by council member Xavier Fonollosa, has decided to scale back the measure. Now, following criticism from social organizations and the opposition, as well as intervention from the ombudsperson, Esther Giménez-Salinas, the city council will only fine those who take more than 25 liters of water from municipal fountains. The municipal government will bring a modification to the ordinance prohibiting filling water jugs at public fountains to the plenary session in February. The original text was open for public comment for 30 business days, during which some twenty organizations—including Cáritas, Raíces Fundación, ECAS, Fundación Ficat, and the Human Rights Commission of the Barcelona Bar Association—submitted objections requesting the withdrawal of the measure, arguing that the use of public fountains violates a human right.

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The Martorell City Council approved a ban on Monday prohibiting the filling of water jugs from the town's public fountains. This measure aims to prevent residents without access to piped water at home from collecting it for domestic use. The measure is included in the municipal coexistence ordinance, which the full council will amend with the support of the governing parties, Junts and the PSC. Specifically, the ban expressly prohibits the use of the fountains to "accumulate water using jugs, bottles, or any other type of container that allows for its storage." Violations will result in fines ranging from €100 to €750. For days now, the fountain where Jon (a pseudonym) gets his daily water supply has been dry, forcing him to walk over 500 meters to find another. "I don't know what we'll do without the fountains. Everyone on my blog is without water, and we have to come here every day too, because we have no alternative," he explains. He explains that in his building there are families with young children who, like him, are squatting because there is no affordable housing available. "What harm are we doing?" asks Jaume (also a pseudonym) upon learning of the planned measure while filling two 16-liter jugs. His elderly parents are waiting for him at home. "We drink, cook, and wash with this water," he explains, surprised. "Is it a crime to drink water now?" he concludes.

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Starter in the first three league matches, Eric Garcia seems to have earned a place in Hansi Flick's starting eleven.The Martorell-born defender, who can play both as a center back and as a full-back, has outplayed Jules Kounde in the first two matchdays, while at Rayo Vallecano he formed a center-back partnership with Andreas Christensen. His versatility also led the German coach to try him as a pivot in his first matches at Barça. "He's a very intelligent kid with the best judgment for distributing his play from the back," Marcel Sans, who had him in the U14 B team, where he played alongside Arnau Tenas, Take Kubo, Ansu Fati, and Nico González, told ARA.

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Rosa RR has been living in an apartment in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Martorell for over three years, but the City Council is preventing her from registering because she has no property title or rental agreement. She has requested entry to the register up to six times and has not received a response in each case, although the law interprets this silence as positive after the required three months have passed. However, she is still not registered.

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The neighbors had been seeing the car of Magí OF, a well-known seventy-year-old businessman dedicated to the scrap metal business, badly parked at the entrance of his tower block on Camí Fondo in Martorell for some time. Finally, they decided to notify his daughter, who lives not far away. When she entered the house, she discovered her father's body, bound and gagged, in the parking lot. He was dead. The house was in disarray, as if someone had broken into a burglary, and it was quickly filled with Mossos d'Esquadra officers, who from the outset investigated his death as a crime. It was November 21, 2024, and the main police hypothesis was that Magi OF had suffered a robbery with the worst possible outcome. information advanced by this newspaper.

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Next year, a new path to obtaining a vocational training (VT) qualification will be available in Catalonia. This Tuesday, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and the Department of Education agreed to launch a new training path at the UPC's Martorell VT center (FPCAT-UPC Campus for Sustainable Mobility) that will allow students to obtain a technical or higher technical qualification through professional certificates.

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Socialist Government's handbrake on the ambitious plan to create deterrent macro-parking lots - or park and ride, in its English name—which had been designed by the previous government of Junts and ERC and which was intended to relieve car congestion in Barcelona. The obvious failure of the first of these macro-parkings, which was inaugurated last summer in Martorell, has led Salvador Illa's executive to halt the thirty projects that had been started and to rethink the need for these large infrastructures, which were supposed to be a stimulus to improve mobility and reduce pollution in the metropolitan area.

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A court has accepted an appeal in which six residents of Martorell are asking the council to process their census after months of administrative silence. An inactivity that, they claim, deprives them of their rights as residents. All of them had already requested registration through administrative means without having received a response from the municipal government. "The census law says that after three months administrative silence is positive, but if the Council does not carry out the procedures, in practice, they cannot exercise their rights," explains the lawyer representing those affected, Esther Sancho, in conversation with the ARA about this case that has advanced Digital Nation. Those affected are in a "legal limbo", as the judicial appeal consulted by the ARA explains.

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