After nine months, fifteen sessions and up to fifty appearances, this Tuesday the Parliament has approved part of the report of the investigation committee on the activity of the Directorate General for Child and Adolescent Care (DGAIA) between the years 2011 and 2025. The committee was created, among other things, due to the case of the minor protected by the DGAIA who was a victim of sexual abuse between 2020 and 2021 and which led to the refounding and renaming of the service by the Government.

With the ECJ's endorsement still present and the day after former president Carles Puigdemont denounced Spain to the European Commission for non-compliance with the law, separatism has taken advantage of the last control session with the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, to pressure him, but above all to bring back his hemeroteca. This has been done by the leader of Junts in the Parliament, Mònica Sales, when she told him: "First he said "no amnesty or anything like that"". Shortly after, the head of ERC in the chamber, Josep Maria Jové, was added, who asked him to "remember": "You didn't want it." The President of the Generalitat avoided engaging and defended looking "forward": "An amnesty was necessary so that negotiations could be normalized in Catalonia.

The first word of the day must be for Josep Vallverdú, who died yesterday at 103 years old.History will speak of the Lleida writer as a celebrated author of children's and young adult novels, with Rovelló at the peak of popularity. But Vallverdú is much more than that: there are more than 200 books in Catalan written amidst prohibitions, those of a life that took place in large part between two dictatorships, that of Primo de Rivera and that of Franco, a civil war and a post-war period. Vallverdú, from the same group as Joaquim Carbó, Sebastià Sorribas, or Emili Teixidor, is one of those writers who saved our words, and for that he deserves our gratitude. From Vallverdú, I want to share with you today some wise words spoken in an interview, talking about what was to remain in the last years of life. He said: “Only affections and hopes should remain in the closet, and the stronger the affections, the closer the hopes will be to becoming a reality.” May he rest in peace, Josep Vallverdú.Meanwhile, the judicial landscape is darkening for former Spanish president Zapatero and, by extension, for the current president Sánchez, who has always supported him, because although it has not been clarified who Zapatero influenced to rescue an airline with 53 million of public money for the pandemic, what seems proven is that the company paid money, a percentage of which ended up in Zapatero's pocket, and he denied having anything to do with it. For the moment, La Moncloa continues to trust Zapatero, but in view of what is known, that trust hangs by a thread.And today the Parliament held the last control session of the Government before the holidays. President Illa has been heard to say that he has gone from “no amnesty nor anything like that” to applauding the ECJ and asking that Spanish justice comply with the law. In fact, Puigdemont, Comín and Puig have denounced Spain before the European Commission for disregarding the ECJ.But the most interesting thing was when the spokesperson for Junts, Mònica Sales, asked the president what he plans to do about the shameful state investments in Catalonia, which last year were 8.6%. And Illa's response began by acknowledging the problem.

Today, to start, we have a government crisis. The new Minister of Social Rights is called Raúl Moreno, until now general secretary of the department. He replaces Mònica Martínez Bravo, who lived in Madrid and worked in Catalonia, and who requested relief from President Illa. At the handover ceremony, Illa remarked that it was a change of minister but not of policies. As Aleix Moldes explains today, this will not be the last government reshuffle where the Minister of Health, Olga Pané, currently on leave due to a fractured fibula, will not finish the term, nor will super-minister Sílvia Paneque, who will be sent back to her city, Girona, to try to regain the mayorship for the socialists. It is worth noting that Girona is a state-level mayoralty, because the relationship with the Spanish royal family will not be fully normalized in Catalonia until the awards named after the Crown heiress, the Princess of Girona, can be held in the city.It is clear that, due to a government crisis, that of the United Kingdom, which yesterday premiered a prime minister, the Labourite Andy Burnham, who in a speech without a lectern or teleprompter pledged to "make politics work, and work better", promised a new political model and a new economic model, to reindustrialize the United Kingdom. Burnham went straight to the point: the cost of living must be reduced, homelessness must be ended (he went to prepare breakfasts at a shelter for homeless people in London), in short, to get the United Kingdom out of a crisis that we also know here, but which there has the specificity of Brexit. It has been a bad deal: think that since the United Kingdom left the European Union (now, in June, it was 10 years ago) they have had seven prime ministers, and Burnham, specifically, is the fourth prime minister of Charles III in less than 4 years. Charles III succeeded his mother in September 2022, now four years ago, and began his reign with Liz Truss (who only lasted 45 days), Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, and now Andy Burnham. The fourth in less than four years is a clear sign of political instability derived from national disorientation, inflation, stagnant wages, lack of affordable housing, or the deterioration of public services.There are no perfect countries, they all carry a backpack or another; what do I have to tell you about Catalonia that you don't know. Today the day began with train traffic interrupted between Lleida and La Plana-Picamoixons due to a cable theft, as reported by Adif. An incident that happens every two by three, and which speaks, above all, of the abandonment in which Spain has kept its railway network in Catalonia for decades.In the last few hours, the Football World Cup has given the idea of Spain the possibility to look in the mirror and like itself, to make the speech of "When Spain plays, we all play", of the inclusive nation. This is the pleasant part of the Spanish message these days. But the nationalist discourse soon appeared, consisting of saying that it was enough to go around the world with complexes and that young people went out into the street without complexes. Let this comment from the newspaper this comment from the newspaper La Razón.Come on, cover yourselves a little. The idea of a unified and Castilian Spain has never had complexes (with a slight exception, a tactical withdrawal at the beginning of the Transition due to an apparent bad conscience due to the association between Spain and Francoism). For the rest, Spain goes its own way, with its language, investments, and blocking of any legal recognition of its plurinationality. And, on the other hand, let's understand each other: they present it as a success of the idea of Spain that people go out to celebrate the successes of the only team, when it is the only possible team, the "normal" one, which is normal because it is mandatory for athletes under penalty of losing their federative license to play. The only uninhibited thing is the nerve they have.

Has acabado de aprobar the 2026 budgets, much later than I expected, but the Government is now setting in motion the machinery for those of 2027. This Monday the Official Gazette of the Generalitat of Catalonia (DOGC) publishes the order from the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, for all departments and public companies to begin preparing next year's accounts. Until September 10, internal amendments to the draft can be proposed, and by October 23, most variables should be finalized. However, this does not necessarily mean that the budgets will end up being approved by the executive council: the PSC has already been burned enough by the recent negotiation with ERC, which forced Illa to withdraw the 2026 budget when it was already being processed.

Catalonia concentrates 17% of the State's population and contributes 19% of the Spanish GDP. It would make sense for these indicators to be valued when making state investments that facilitate the population's well-being, for justice, and the growth of its economy, for the benefit of the whole. On the other hand, year after year, and we've had many, too many, what is demonstrated is a chronic deficit of investments that in no way corresponds to the demographic and economic weight of the country. According to reports that the Treasury has sent to political parties and Congress, the central government spent only 8.6% of all the investment it executed during the year 2025 in the autonomous communities in Catalonia. 8.6%. Less than half of what would correspond.

Increase productivity. The Government sets this as a priority in order to continue growing the Catalan economy. In the annual report published by the Department of Economy and Finance, the Generalitat points out that "despite the intense process of accumulation of physical capital and labor", the per capita income of the country is growing "more weakly than the European Union average over the last quarter of a century". "This paradox therefore points to an inefficient evolution of productivity", indicates the study, which recognizes that total factor productivity (TFP) – the reference indicator for measuring productivity – "shows a worse trajectory" than that observed in the European Union.

Great news: the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has largely endorsed the amnesty law.It found it to be in accordance with EU law, because it considered that the amnesty is not contrary to the financial interests of the European Union, nor is it contrary to the directive on terrorism (the crime for which some CDRs had been prosecuted). It goes further, emphatically: the CJEU states that the amnesty does not harm equal treatment, in the sense that it was a law only intended to favor some, but rather it was approved "in a real context of political and social reconciliation" and therefore does not constitute a "self-amnesty". With this ruling, the Court of Auditors should file its cases, and the National Court, too. And the Supreme Court, of course. But at the moment I'm speaking to you, the arrest warrant for Carles Puigdemont or the disqualification of Oriol Junqueras is still in place. And it is quite likely that they will wait until autumn to lift them, which is when the Constitutional Court will issue a ruling on the Supreme Court's refusal to apply the amnesty. To put it this way, Carles Puigdemont is one step closer to returning to Catalonia, and now it seems it is only a matter of a few months.The CJEU ruling is great news, but that the amnesty is not fully applied is a disgrace that can only be explained by the "a por ellos!". It is important to remember where we come from: the TS prosecuted the political prisoners for rebellion, a crime that should have required armed violence, it condemned for sedition, which would also have required violence, and now it refuses to apply the amnesty for embezzlement, for which there has also been none. It is a deployment of creative, patriotic justice.The president Illa made a statement in Catalan, Spanish, and English :“I appear before all of you to express my satisfaction and that of the Government of Catalonia for the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union. An explicit ruling, which endorses Organic Law 1/2024 on amnesty for the institutional, political, and social normalization of Catalonia. The highest instance of European justice has spoken clearly: the law complies with European law. Europe says 'yes' to amnesty, Catalonia says 'yes' to the future. The decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union is very good news for Catalonia, for Spain, and for democracy. There is no turning back. The amnesty law is part, with all its consequences, of our legal framework, and therefore, its application is mandatory.”

Let's start with the big headlines that the latest barometer of the Centre d’Estudis d’Opinió of the Generalitat, which confirms already known trends in our political landscape. Aliança Catalana positions itself as the third force – in a technical tie with the second, ERC – in the Parliament, thanks to votes that leave Junts per Catalunya, which shows unexpected weakness. Meanwhile, the PSC, despite accumulating a great deal of power, not only does not advance, but recedes. All of this coincides, for example, with the survey published by this newspaper last May, although Sílvia Orriols' rise was not as pronounced then as it is now.Before continuing, it is worth pointing out that polls are only a snapshot, the reflection of a specific moment in a reality – in this case, political reality – that is constantly evolving. Shortly after the photograph was taken, the situation has already changed and is different. In this regard, it should be remembered that we are in July 2026 and the Catalan elections will be held, if they are not brought forward, in the spring of 2028. There is a long time to go. Many things, foreseen and unforeseen, have to happen between now and then. For example, it is very possible that next year we will have a PP-Vox government in Madrid, and we also have to expect that the amnesty will have been fully effective and Carles Puigdemont will have returned to Catalonia. However, polls serve to help us understand and better grasp the situation we are in.The main protagonists today are, without a doubt, Sílvia Orriols and her party. Never before, since the recovery of democracy, has such a rapid and resounding rise been seen. Aliança is receiving support from many people who had voted for Junts. It is also taking voters from Vox. It is very clear that Orriols's main appeal is the call against immigration, especially against Muslim immigration. This fact should serve for everyone to realize that the migratory issue must be addressed, whether one likes it or not. It cannot be allowed to be taken over and capitalized on by either Aliança or Vox. The fact that these two parties have an estimated voting intention of practically 25% indicates that immigration – in the volume that Catalonia has received it – is perceived as a problem by many citizens. It is an important concern. If we do not want the dehumanizing and often impossible recipes of the far-right to continue advancing, the rest of the forces must face the phenomenon head-on, they must foster an honest debate and they must make realistic – autonomies have few competences in this matter – and sensible proposals. Hiding our heads in the sand and pretending that nothing is happening leads us to a disastrous scenario.

July 14th, the French national holiday, to commemorate the end of the Bourbon monarchy and the establishment of a republic driven by easily embraceable universal values, such as liberty, fraternity, and equality. It was only fitting that in "Casablanca," the "Marseillaise" competed against a Nazi anthem to become the anthem of freedom sung with pride and courage by a group of Free Frenchmen, in one of the most moving scenes in cinema history. It would all be very beautiful if it weren't for the fact that in the name of this fraternal republic, France has pursued languages like Catalan to the point of self-loathing and extinction.It is similar to what the Spanish state has done in Catalonia. What it has done, and what it continues to do:The Supreme Court has ruled that Spanish cannot be excluded from the signage of public educational centers in Catalonia. He says that “Castilian is the official language throughout Spain, which means it is a language that cannot be excluded from communications between public authorities and citizens".As Sebastià Alzamora titles his article today, “if you are Spanish, speak Spanish”, which is what my parents had to hear in their youth during the dictatorship. It's the same old song, when it suits us we are Spanish (especially when it comes to paying taxes that go away and don't serve the well-being of Catalans) and when it suits us (always) our language is not Spanish enough. We know all this by heart and, even so, meanwhile, President Illa went to Madrid yesterday and signed Catalonia's loyalty to the State. A loyalty that, as we see, is not reciprocal and that, by dint of repetition, led to the logical conclusion of half the country wanting independence in 2017. Loyalty is only possible from equality. And what exists between Spain and Catalonia or between Spanish and Catalan is a Catalan subordination to the supremacy of the State over the province. The rest are rhetorical sleight of hand that no one can believe anymore. Or kind, almost pleading, ways of telling the Spanish that the current government of the Generalitat will not organize any October 1st for them. 

President Illa has offered, at an event by Efe and RTVE in Madrid, the "institutional cooperation" and "loyalty" of his government, and has considered that those who criticize the new financing model because Catalonia proposes it and not for its content are "bad Spaniards".

A decade ago, when a President of the Generalitat landed in Madrid, it was to defend the possibility of Catalonia voting in a referendum on independence. Artur Mas did it first; then Carles Puigdemont, Quim Torra and, finally, Pere Aragonès. Ten years later, however, with new majorities in Parliament, the Catalan government presents itself as the best guarantee of "institutional cooperation" and "loyalty" to the Spanish government's project. The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, starred this Monday in a press breakfast in the Spanish capital, organized by Efe and RTVE, in which he highlighted the moment that Catalonia without the Procés is experiencing: the Generalitat has budgets; it "leads" the new financing proposal where all autonomous communities gain resources, and it is synonymous with "stability". In addition, he has called for "speed" in applying the amnesty law, hitting a nerve with those like the PP and Vox who accuse the PSOE of reviving independence: "It is the first time in forty years that there has been no nationalist and independence majority. It has not revitalized, on the contrary [...]. I know what I'm talking about".

It will probably not surprise anyone if we state that Salvador Illa is the main pillar that Pedro Sánchez has left in Spain. The current head of the Catalan executive was the PSOE leader's bet to reconquer the Palau de la Generalitat in 2021 after years of independence governments. He did not achieve it at first, but after three years of waiting, the socialists returned to preside over the Government.Their idyll had been born from Illa's time as Minister of Health: it was in the midst of the pandemic when the two socialist leaders forged a bond, political and personal, that has not cracked with the passage of years. Not even now, when the Spanish president is going through his worst moment of the legislature, besieged by various judicial cases that involve his closest political and personal circle. In fact, it is now that Salvador Illa has shown him his most unconditional support. Also at the risk of tying his political future to the fate of the Spanish president.

No one would say that Salvador Illa was Pere Aragonès's leader of the opposition for three years. No one would say that judging by the praise that the President of the Generalitat showered on his predecessor this Friday to thank him for handing over the documentary fund of his three-year term to the National Archive of Catalonia. Illa has underlined the republican's "institutional sense" –"He always put the institution before everything else," he assured– and has once again valued the "exemplary" handover that Aragonès made him when he left the Palau de la Generalitat. A handover that Illa takes as a "reference" for when it's his turn. "I hope there are still a few years left," he admitted with a half-smile at the event he presided over this morning at the National Archive.

The CEO survey confirms the trends that ARA's already pointed to and which draws a double axis of growth on the Catalan political map: one that concentrates opposition to Salvador Illa's executive, and which is currently held by Aliança Catalana, and another that gathers the left-wing vote considered most useful to stop the far-right, which is currently ERC of the Junqueras-Rufián tandem. To summarize, we can say that Aliança is the anti-Illa party and ERC is the anti-Orriols party. And currently, the survey places these two parties vying for second position in hypothetical parliamentary elections.

A 15-year-old boy died last night in the Sagrera neighborhood, in the Sant Andreu district of Barcelona, when he was shot with a firearm in Parc de la Pegaso. According to councilor Parlon, the first indications point to a gang revenge.We have a serious problem, which we did not have, with firearms. In Barcelona this year there have already been seven people killed by bullets. One a month. Drug trafficking gangs use cities as their distribution centers, there is a lot of money circulating, a lot of weapons circulating (remember that we have a war in Europe, in Ukraine, specifically), and their crimes take place in any neighborhood, from Balmes/Travessera to Parc de la Pegaso. They are no longer settled in Barcelona, but rather they live in Barcelona, and they kill there, whether it is the day the Pope comes or the day the Tour de France is presented. And they buy other businesses and have the capacity, if the police and justice do not confront them, to turn us into a narco-society.This week I mentioned here that around 300,000 people would have requested papers in Catalonia (given the Spanish total), and they ended up being a bit less, 257,000 applications, out of a total of one million seven hundred thousand in all of Spain. And this, when at first the Spanish government was talking about half a million in total. More than half have already been admitted for processing. In Madrid, the applications ended up being 200,000, and in the Valencian Community 167,000. On these two pages there is a detail of the ages of the new citizens, from which countries they come from, and which sectors they will work in. We will not review now the challenge that integrating all these people means in every sense. Immigration allows the economy not to stop, but services are needed. Will they pay taxes, and, at the same time, how will we pay for all this? And this is where the budgets that the Parliament approved yesterday come in. It is good news, which arrives in July (!), and thank goodness, because now we were going with the extended budgets of 2023. In fact, having budgets should be an obligation, because as we have said here many times it is not their money, it is our money. However, Catalonia will always fall short, with or without budgets, as long as it cannot dispose of its fiscal effort. This is why a new and much better financing system is needed. And speaking of all this: are you aware of the complaint about the dismissal of a worker from the company Aticco for speaking Catalan. The company says it didn't happen exactly like that, that the decision "responds exclusively to professional reasons", but the worker denies it. In fact, two of the dismissal reasons they gave her had to do with the use of Catalan. The Minister of Linguistic Policy, Francesc Xavier Vila, has ordered the Office for the Protection of Linguistic Rights to open an investigation and take appropriate measures.

Salvador Illa will reach the midpoint of the legislature with the political stability he sought. This Thursday, Parliament has definitively approved the budgets that he agreed upon a few weeks ago with Esquerra and Comuns, the two investiture partners, who this morning added their votes to validate the first accounts of the socialist government – Junts deputy Noemí Nieto also voted in favor by mistake. Accounts that will reach almost 50,000 million euros, 22% more than those of 2023, the last project still approved under the presidency of Pere Aragonès. This Thursday's plenary session also validated the budget accompanying law, which includes, among other things, increasing the tourist tax to 30 euros per day for cruise ships calling at Barcelona and creating the Catalan Airport Authority. Illa thus guarantees himself to reach the end of the legislature with updated budgets and a parliamentary majority that requires the Government to continue for its agreements to be fulfilled.

June began in Parliament with a heated control session in which the opposition tried to surround the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, for the cases of alleged corruption affecting the PSOE and Pedro Sánchez's circle. And the first control session of this July has started the same way, with one more step from the Junts politicians. The president of the Junts group in the Catalan chamber, Mònica Sales, demanded this Wednesday that Illa ask for "forgiveness" for the judicial cases and stop "hiding himself". "When Catalonia has a problem, you disappear; when the PSOE has one, you are always there," she said. "This weekend you had the opportunity to ask for forgiveness on behalf of your party," she retorted, referring to the PSOE federal committee, in which the president said that socialists have "no fear" of anything. Illa, in turn, reiterated that he fears nothing and that he has already given the necessary "explanations".

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".

The praise that President Salvador Illa has dedicated to Jordi Pujol and Convergència has done a good to the public life of the country.