It was no longer decisive, but their vote was one of the last unknowns in the vote on the decree with tax cuts for the Iran war. The PP plans to abstain, according to popular sources. However, Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party still leaves the door open to a vote in favor if there is a last-minute turn by the Spanish government. What should happen? That Pedro Sánchez's executive commits during the debate, which will take place this Thursday, to deflating personal income tax. For the PP, the package of measures approved last Friday by the Council of Ministers is still "insufficient". However, they will not vote against it because it "includes part of its proposal for tax cuts".

The Senate has approved the law on repeat offenders, championed by Junts and adopted by the PSOE government. This law, which had already been passed in the Congress (it will now need to return for final approval), is proudly presented by Junts as a major achievement of the current legislature. It is framed as a tool to combat petty crime, understood as a phenomenon closely linked to immigration. Therefore, it includes a significant tightening of immigration law, with new requirements for obtaining a residence permit, as well as the typical increase in penalties, such as three years in prison for petty theft, etc.

The entire debate surrounding immigration is multifaceted and easily exploited by demagogic and populist rhetoric. That's why it's important to have data that allows us to analyze the phenomenon in all its dimensions. The study published this Thursday by Funcas is particularly interesting, as it estimates that foreign workers have contributed 47% to the growth of the Spanish economy since 2022. In other words, half of the growth is directly attributable to immigration. Put another way, without this contribution of foreign labor, growth would be half, or even lower, because entire sectors would be on the verge of collapse. This report also confirms that newcomers overwhelmingly perform the hardest and lowest-paying jobs, while locals dominate the jobs that require more training and are therefore better paid. This is a reality that is readily apparent in our immediate surroundings. Whether in the fields during harvest time, in slaughterhouses, on roads making repairs, or in the care sector, foreigners now represent the majority of the workforce. Specifically, the primary sector is entirely dependent on foreign workers, as are increasingly other sectors such as construction. It is estimated that almost all of the 2 million workers who have joined the Social Security system since 2019 are foreign, and their contribution is key to explaining the recovery of a pension fund that was nearly depleted during the economic crisis.

The majority formed this Thursday in Congress is unusual. In a climate of high tension between Spain's two major parties, the PP and PSOE voted together on a bill proposed by Junts to toughen the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Law against repeat offenders. This legislation was also approved by Vox and the PNV, amidst criticism from the left-wing groups within the PSOE, who voted against it, with the exception of Esquerra Republicana, which abstained due to pressure from local political groups. This initiative, originally presented by Junts in April 2024, had stalled in the Spanish Parliament until a few months ago when the PSOE revived it to curry favor with Miriam Nogueras's party. The initiative has been repeatedly demanded by Junts mayors, a delegation of whom traveled to Madrid this Thursday to champion the bill: Marc Buch (Calella); Arnau Rovira (Manlleu); Òscar Fernández (Cabrera de Mar) and Xavier Fonollosa (Martorell). Like the PSC: this Wednesday, several Socialist mayors were also in Madrid under the umbrella of the metropolitan area to celebrate the initiative. They held meetings with parliamentary groups, including Junts. In fact, Catalonia played a prominent role in the debate, where the groups identified a significant problem with repeat offenders, especially in the metropolitan area. "If there is one place where this phenomenon has been perceived as a public safety problem, it has been Catalonia," began PSC deputy Paco Aranda, and he provided data: in 2023, 2,700 fast-track trials were scheduled in Madrid compared to 5,900 in Barcelona, ​​he said.

We all agree that it is unacceptable for people to be arrested hundreds of times for petty theft and robbery, only to then continue acting with impunity on our streets. Understandably, this reality generates frustration, distrust, and a perception of failure in both the police and judicial systems, which is always exploited by those who do not hesitate to manipulate it for political gain.

Pedro Sánchez's week of penance has ended with an unexpected move. Junts had long insisted on increasing the penalties for repeat offenders. Well, the PSOE announced yesterday that it will unblock the drafting of the law, which had been shelved for a year. And the best thing now is:

In the climate of extreme polarization in Madrid, the agreement reached on Junts' bill to combat repeat offenders is truly surprising. The text had been stalled for a year, but it was revived this Thursday after the bill's drafting committee report received the support of the PSOE, the PNV, and, remarkably, the PP and Vox. This move is disconcerting because Junts' initiative has generated an unprecedented consensus in Spanish politics and shifted the PSOE's center of gravity to the right, as the Socialists have abandoned their usual left-wing partners. In any case, the maneuver demonstrates several things. The first is that the PSOE is willing to make moves to secure Junts' support. But so is the PP, because what is strange is that the Popular Party and Vox would agree to add their votes to the Socialists, whom they accuse daily of being a "mafia," and thus facilitate another parliamentary victory for Pedro Sánchez. The PSOE needs to win several votes in Congress to demonstrate that the legislature is still alive, regardless of the parliamentary makeup. That's why it's surprising that the PP and Vox are making things easier for them in this particular case. Secondly, Junts is currently the party with the greatest capacity to influence votes in Congress, as it can form alliances with both the PSOE and the PP. In fact, regarding the law against repeat offenders, Junts has managed to square the circle, incorporating changes proposed by both parties without either of them withdrawing from the agreement. It's also clear that Junts's aim is not to bring down the Sánchez government, but to gain maximum influence. And from that perspective, the split is acting as a catalyst for change.

Two days after Pedro Sánchez acknowledge the "breaches" with Junts and publicly express a willingness to "restart" the relationship With the support of Carles Puigdemont's party, the Junts party has secured one of its parliamentary demands. The Socialists have now agreed to unblock Junts's law on multiple recidivism in Congress after it had been stalled for over a year. This is one of the outstanding commitments that the Spanish Prime Minister had made. He already said he would take it out of the freezer.Although Junts initially greeted Sánchez's words with distrust at the end of October, the Socialists have finally made some concessions. However, the list of issues still pending before Puigdemont's party reverses its decision to secede is long and includes matters more complex to implement than simply increasing penalties for theft.

Two Japanese tourists board a train on Barcelona's L1 metro line. Upon arriving at Arc de Triomf station, they notice someone rummaging through their bags. It's a young man wearing a Manchester United shirt who, realizing he's been caught, abandons the theft and flees. Two security guards try to stop him, but he assaults one and escapes along the train tracks. He runs to the next station, Marina, where he re-enters the platform, covered in black dust, and flees again. He's a "two-time offender," which in police jargon means he has two prior convictions, and two plainclothes officers from the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) eventually arrest him, placing him against the wall and handcuffing him, while a third security guard, trembling, explains that he had to use pepper spray to subdue him.

The same week that Junts broke with the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez is now open to unblocking one of the agreements with Carles Puigdemont's party, and Junts voted in favor of a Spanish government law, the one on customer service. The Spanish president made a gesture to revive the law on repeat offenders, although it was a generic announcement that neither the Moncloa Palace nor the PSOE expected, and it remains to be seen whether it will gain traction.

Often, nothing is what it seems. When Mossos d'Esquadra officers see three people entering stores and trying to sell first a phone and then some jewelry, they follow them. The phone is an iPhone Pro Max 16, but they sell it for much less, around 300 euros. The jewelry claims to be gold, but the retailers want to sell it for 25 euros. When they finally arrest them, they see one of them with two "red" colors. This color is played several times over the radio: it's the internal code for someone with an outstanding arrest warrant. Nothing is what it seems because the sellers turn out to be fugitives, the iPhone is fake—the officers went to the Apple store to corroborate this—and the gold wasn't gold—they also went to a specialized store to verify this.

The story begins in a Lisbon shopping mall, or on the streets of Milan. The next episode takes place in an apartment in Barcelona's Raval district, and the finale is filmed in North Africa or China. The Mossos d'Esquadra has become a hub of mobile resale and these two stories prove it: last week, Catalan police arrested 20 people who were buying stolen cell phones in the Raval district.. They recovered more than a thousand phones. One belonged to the Portuguese man at the shopping center, another to the pedestrian in Milan, but there was also one belonging to a shopper at a supermarket in Gandía, a festival-goer in Torrejón de Ardoz, and a visitor to the April Fair in Seville.

New joint device of the police forces to catch thieves and repeat offenders in Catalonia. The Mossos d'Esquadra, together with the urban guard, the local police and the Spanish police, They carried out a new Kanpai plan yesterday (this is how they have dubbed this type of operation) that allowed them to identify and arrest up to thirty people in just seven hours, with a total of 226 criminal records, and locate another four people under criminal investigation, with a total of 48 records.

The sense of impunity is sometimes demonstrated with small gestures. Such was the case this Friday afternoon of a nineteen-year-old repeat offender with twelve prior convictions when the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) arrested and searched him on Barcelona's Rambla del Raval. While waiting to be searched, he lifted his shirt and said, smiling and sarcastically, that he was carrying a gun. It was a plastic gun, enough of a toy that no officer would be surprised. However, he ended up losing it, and it will end up destroyed at the police station. This scene took place amidst a massive identification of people by the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), the National Police, and the Guardia Urbana (Urban Guard). They found drugs, but no one was arrested. It was all part of the police's new offensive against repeated offending., which not only seeks to stop, but precisely to end, the feeling of insecurity felt by residents and the impunity felt by thieves like the nineteen-year-old repeat offender. In 2024, in Barcelona alone, police arrested 452 repeat offenders who committed up to 9,114 crimes.

The Catalan police have launched a new plan to combat the phenomenon of multiple reoffending. It's called the Kanpai plan and replaces the current Tremall plan, following an extensive analysis by the new Catalan police leadership. As explained this Sunday by the ARA in a dossier on multiple recidivismThe Kanpai plan will be launched in the coming days and will begin outside of Barcelona city, as it will be implemented in metropolitan areas. According to Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan Police), one of the new features is that the public order units, the Arro (Arro Police) and the Mobile Brigade (Brigade Mobile), will be incorporated into citizen security efforts. In other words, they will "saturate" critical areas more to "eliminate the feeling of impunity," also identifying potential suspects. This is a long-term plan, and Mossos d'Esquadra sources already warn that it will not immediately reduce the figures. However, the number of property crimes is falling, and in 2024, Barcelona recorded its lowest theft rate of the decade.

There is no doubt that combating the phenomenon of repeated theft is one of the priority objectives of the security forces, because beyond the specific damage caused by each robbery, it provokes a strong sense of insecurity, which ultimately also damages coexistence. In Catalonia, 23 thefts occur every hour, ten of them in Barcelona, ​​​​which is the epicenter of this type of crime. The ARA (Argentine National Police) attempts to address this reality through a dossier that aims to identify its causes and also the solutions that can be implemented.

The workday starts early, so early that there are three hours left until sunrise and tourists are still entering the nightclubs of Port Olímpic. It's 3 a.m. this Thursday when one of the first robberies of the day is reported in Barcelona. At the exit of a nightclub, an IWC Portofino Chronograph watch, valued at €6,000, is stolen. The number of property crimes is declining—the lowest rate of thefts in the country since 2017—but the pace remains frantic, with 23 thefts every hour in Catalonia, and almost half that number, 10, in Barcelona. People tend to calculate the costs and benefits of an action. Such as choosing a night job (more sleep, fewer meetings with friends, but more money) or buying an electric car (more expensive, but fewer emissions and less money on gas). Thieves don't live in a world apart, and those who started their workday so early calculated that the cost of being caught was much lower than the profit they achieved in two minutes of work.

The conversation takes place on a boulevard in Barcelona's Raval district, where he admits he has stolen many times. He is known in the neighborhood for being one of the most professional experts in the art of Ronaldinho. It's not about kicking or juggling a ball, but rather about approaching a person's leg and making strange movements to cause stupefaction and, above all, distraction. The moment the victim is not looking, he takes advantage to steal their cell phone. "Do I steal? Yes. Is that wrong? Yes. But I'm not violent and I don't hurt anyone," he repeats more than once during the conversation.

Dealing with those arrested for all types of crimes in Barcelona and representing them before the judge who will decide whether they are released on bail or sent to prison while awaiting trial. This is the normal part of a day on duty for a public defender and also the work that attorney Pol Olivet will be doing for the next 24 hours.

The relationship between police and thieves often ends up becoming a game of cat and rat: when the former increase pressure on a hotspot for theft, the latter move to new locations and may even change their strategy to continue committing crimes. This is happening these days at El Prat Airport, one of the hotspots with the most thefts in the country. As this newspaper reported, the incessant rate of thefts (they have multiplied by ten in a decade) made the Mossos d'Esquadra put many more officers in the infrastructure, a reinforcement that is beginning to give results and which has managed to stop the flow of robberiesAt the height of the crisis, there was one theft every hour, and now there are four or five a day. Patrols, arrests, and identifications have increased... But some usual They haven't disappeared from the facilities: they've changed their setting.