The president of the Catalan Summer University, historian Jordi Casassas, welcomes the ARA on one of the few mornings he has a gap during the week of frenetic activity of this event that, for 57 years, has brought together the best of Catalanism in Prada de Conflent.

The independence movement scored a point in its legal battle against the Spanish judiciary when, in 2023, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) admitted the possibility of denying a European arrest warrant in very specific circumstances: as declared by the Luxembourg Court, a judge can refuse extradition due to evidence of "generalized deficiencies" in the judicial system and a risk of persecution against individuals from a specific group.

Montserrat Abbey received the Canigó Prize this Thursday, awarded by the Catalan Summer University (UCE) in recognition of its thousand-year history, inseparable from that of Catalonia. But both the award ceremony and the presentation of the prize, which was received by Father Abbot Manel Gasch, were marked by a profound change. due to the controversial participation of Felipe VI at the millennium celebration event, which unleashed an earthquake within Catalan Catholicism. During the ceremony, Gasch had to listen to several calls for Montserrat to continue being "the spiritual refuge," the "center of cultural resistance," and the "common home" of the Països Catalans. These were the words used by the Archbishop of Tarragona and president of the Tarragona Episcopal Conference, Joan Planellas, in his speech to the audience.

"Here, we're holding on as best we can." This is what Maria, a resident of Prada, says. She has been attending the Catalan Summer University (UCE) for years and sadly describes how Catalan is being lost in everyday life in Northern Catalonia, in businesses and homes. She turns to a couple of journalists in the UCE auditorium: she's curious to know which part of the Principality the accent she's heard them speak with corresponds to. Before the talk begins, she takes the opportunity to point out that, when she goes down to the Principality, she never switches languages: "When I go to Girona, I always speak Catalan. If they speak to me in Spanish, I leave. Catalan must be defended," she claims. But it's difficult to do so when, across the border, the French state tries by every means to keep it out of the institutions.

Neither Junts nor Carles Puigdemont are willing to give the PSOE more extensions to comply with commitments they've been dragging on for years. This is the message the former president of the Generalitat wanted to send from Prada de Conflent, at the Catalan Summer University, where he gave a lecture on Pompeu Fabra this Tuesday. The first of these pacts is the official status of Catalan in Europe, signed two years ago at the constitution of the board in Congress, but it is not the only one. And the Junts leader is beginning to run out of patience: "Stability must be earned periodically. And, in the autumn, perhaps things will happen that haven't happened until now, because we've already given enough time," he warned. However, he declined to anticipate what this warning might take.