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.

Jordi Pujol reappeared this Monday to put a face to the donation that the party he founded, Convergència, has made to the National Archive of Catalonia. The formation has donated its documentary collection in an act presided over by the head of the Catalan executive, Salvador Illa. In fact, the socialist president has once again heaped praise on Pujol: he has acknowledged his "work and political passion in the service of the country." Praise that he also extended to Convergència: "Catalonia owes a lot to Convergència and Catalonia, without Convergència, it would not have been the country it is today." The president has described the 150 linear meters of documents, posters, and merchandise of the party as a "collective treasure."

Spanish political life has a quite explicit calendar this week: yesterday Begoña Gómez, President Sánchez's wife, declared before the judge; today the director general of the Civil Guard declares in the Senate about her contacts with Leire Díez, and tomorrow Zapatero has to declare for influence peddling and money laundering for having acted as an intermediary in the rescue of the airline company Plus Ultra, even though the former Spanish president has asked the judge for more days to defend himself regarding the origin of the jewels, which now turn out to have a value exceeding one million euros. It is a hellish moment for the PSOE.The judge must decide whether to withdraw Begoña Gómez's passport, because he does not want her to leave Spain as he believes there is a risk of flight, while from the Civil Guard's investigation into the PSOE's sewers it appears that Santos Cerdán ordered all of Leire Díez's trips to be approved without any verification and that “nobody knows what was happening in Cerdán’s office”. Contacts in Madrid tell me that most ministers are devastated, and that Sánchez is holding on because he is risking his life or, at least, his freedom. You already know the Catalan drift of this panorama: Salvador Illa is a close friend of Sánchez and, right now, he is the only socialist leader with weight in Spain.And in the meantime, what is Illa doing? Yesterday the president signed a new pact of these that he likes so much, this time with employers and unions, to relaunch industry, so that in three and a half years, by 2030, industry represents 25% of Catalonia's GDP. It does not currently reach 20% in an economy, like ours, heavily tilted towards the service sector.Catalonia is still an industrial country, and it began to be so more than a century ago. I mean that there are realities that are not improvised, and now Illa returns to a very Pujolista narrative of Catalonia as an engine through industrial growth. On Friday I heard the president in La Seu d'Urgell, at the Business Meeting in the Pyrenees. He spoke to them about that association of the Four Motors for Europe from Pujol's era, created in 1988: Catalonia (Barcelona), Baden-Württemberg (Stuttgart), Lombardy (Milan), and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (Lyon). Illa spoke to the businessmen about confidence, about the value of a public health system like Catalonia's, and even about Christian humanism. It was a speech of institutional and constitutional normality, without political adventures, very focused on reviving the country's economic potential through innovation, external openness, and exports, in a tone reminiscent of Pujol's, with the difference that 23 years have passed since Pujol stepped down as president. Illa speaks of the country's economic future like a convergent, perhaps because he aspires to win re-election from convergent centrality, now that the rose on the fist is withered and threatened and that the heirs of Convergence are trapped with the leader still in exile.Good morning.

“More industry, but, above all, of better quality”: Salvador Illa and the country's main economic agents have sealed this Monday the new National Pact for Industry. The roadmap until 2030 foresees an investment of almost 4,500 million euros in 190 actions comprised in five major areas, such as innovation or employment. During his speech, the President of the Generalitat emphasized that the agreement "is not a sectoral pact" but a "national and future pact". The text has been agreed with the two main employers' associations in the territory, Foment del Treball and Pimec, and the two majority trade unions, Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) and UGT. The objective: that by 2030 industry represents 25% of Catalonia's gross domestic product (GDP), the macroeconomic indicator that measures the monetary value of all final goods and services produced within a territory.

On November 1, 2010, Mas won the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia with enough force to govern. The next day, ARA dedicated its front page to "the new president's agenda": 1) Streamline the administration, 2) Abolish the inheritance tax, 3) Renegotiate the debt of the Generalitat, 4) Rebuild and complete the Quart Cinturó, 5) Eliminate the 80 km/h speed limit. In popular language, we distinguish between politicians who intend to change the world and those who want to limit themselves to "managing". To make ourselves understood, the former want to approve same-sex marriage and the latter want trains to arrive on time; the former want to change the educational system and the latter want the school year to start on the scheduled date and with full staffing. Mas presented himself as a manager who would bring order after the two left-wing tripartites, which would have been characterized by decisions that held the country back. He also considered – very much in line with a neoliberal ideology that was in better health than it is today – that the Catalan government's accounts could be balanced by cutting unnecessary expenses.Mas failed, it goes without saying: fifteen years later, the Catalan administration has not slimmed down, both the inheritance tax and the 80 km/h on the Barcelona accesses remain in force, the Quart Cinturó is still under construction and we are awaiting the forgiveness of 15% of the FLA debt. Discontent devoured him, and he ended up leading an independence movement in which he did not believe. A movement that – it should be remembered – began with a chaos in the Rodalies service, five years before the start of the Procés.

In a month's time, Salvador Illa's government will have approved the first budgets of the legislature. An agreement with Comuns and ERC that gives the executive breathing room and certifies that this is currently the only viable majority in Catalonia. Republicans and Comuns already invested Illa and, despite the tug-of-war of the last two years, they continue to be the partners that give him stability. Even to avoid inconvenient appearances by the president in Parliament. This Tuesday, for the second consecutive week, ERC, Comuns, and the PSC prevented the chamber from summoning Illa. Junts wanted him to appear to explain the role of the Generalitat in the crisis opened with public school teachers. Seven days ago, the Junts, with the support of PP and Vox, demanded that the president respond for the cases of alleged corruption that splash the PSOE (and that the judge does not rule out entirely that they have a derivative in the PSC).

The battle for education will have dire consequences for students, families, the teachers who are striking, and, above all, for the protagonists of the negotiation process: on the one hand, the unions, disavowed by their base, and on the other, the Department of Education, which has seen its ups and downs and last-minute concessions prove futile. In short, it is a battle where everyone loses. There will be – indeed – labor improvements for some public servants who certainly deserve them (but they are not the only ones), but the great pending issue, which is the crisis in the educational model, will continue to await better times, times when generosity and a national vision prevail over tactical maneuvering and vested interests.On a political level, the conflict has confirmed the failure of the Illa government's narrative. They sold us good management and a de-escalation of tension, but the times when the PSC boasted of having anesthetized the country are long gone. On the contrary, it has been shown that the problems that, in part, motivated the rise of sovereigntism are still very much alive, although for the moment there is no social movement capable of turning citizen anger into a shock force. The country is as fed up as ever, but it has been deprived of a horizon of change and improvement. And the anger is beginning to give oxygen to those who are always ready to point to the most vulnerable, as victims but also as involuntary accomplices of a productive model that is crushing the social contract and the factors of collective cohesion. To top it all off, the PSC no longer relies on the PSOE's trump card (which is also the anti-PP trump card), because Sánchez's future is becoming clouded by moments.This scenario can entice the PSC's electoral rivals, but precisely the educational crisis should make them see that tactical maneuvering, when faced with the real challenges of the country, is not an option. ERC and CiU have already suffered teacher strikes, and both parties are complicit in the failure of the Catalan school model. It is up to the Government to initiate a new national pact for education, and it is up to the opposition – and the teachers – to have the generosity to get fully involved without thinking about their particular interests, be they electoral, ideological, or corporate.We don't know what would happen today in an election, but we do know that the citizenry is discontent. If the far-right rises, it will be difficult to avoid closer collaboration between the country's central forces –PSC, Junts, ERC, Comuns–, regardless of the number of seats they obtain. Since right now everyone is fighting with everyone, it is civil society that is making proposals (the Informe Fènix" is the clearest example). But, in the long run, institutions must exercise the leadership that corresponds to them. This does not just mean parliamentary consensus; it also means a constituent process to end the abnormality of Catalan political life, which has the theoretical leader of the opposition in exile, independentists disqualified or awaiting trial due to an amnesty that is a wet paper, and all this governed by an Autonomy Statute that has been cut and not ratified by the citizenry.If the PSC wants to lead the country and undertake the great reforms that are increasingly urgent, it now knows that it cannot do it alone. It also knows that its potential allies are sovereigntist or confederalist parties – in any case, parties that challenge the current constitutional framework. This will become even more evident when the PP and Vox reach Moncloa. More sovereignty and more resources are needed to face the present and save the future. Who will dare to oppose this watchword? Fortunately for Salvador Illa, ERC and Junts are too busy sticking their fingers in their eyes and resolving their internal contradictions. One day, however, they will see the handle of the frying pan in front of them.

The joke goes that the PSC is now the Christian Social Party. Salvador Illa has been explicit since he became president in his ideological positioning, which he bases on Christian humanism. The same that Pope Prevost, Leo XIV, defends, as has been clear in his first encyclical. The social aspect of this pontiff is even more solid than that of his popular predecessor, the Argentine Bergoglio. Prevost has become a strong global voice in favor of welcoming immigrants, in favor of the most vulnerable, against the renewed warmongering of Trump, Netanyahu, and Putin, in favor of cultural dialogue and against platform capitalism that polarizes society, both ideologically and economically, with a purely pecuniary logic of use of algorithms and artificial intelligence.

Salvador Illa's first budgets passed their initial parliamentary stage this Thursday. The debate on the entirety of the accounts once again highlighted the alliance that brought the socialist president to the Palau de la Generalitat and which the Government intends to serve it to reach the end of the legislature. Thus, the budgets have begun to be processed with the support of the two investiture partners, ERC and Comuns, with whom the Government reached an agreement two weeks ago. The executive, however, has not managed to secure the 'yes' of any of the opposition groups: Junts, the CUP, Aliança, the PP, and Vox had presented amendments in their entirety, four texts that have been rejected. The words of the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, asking them to come out of the "trench" and defending accounts that reach almost 50 billion euros and grow by 22% compared to those of 2023, have not served to convince them. And even more so when, during the debate, the news broke that teachers rejected the unions' agreement with Education. Junts and the CUP have taken the opportunity to attack the executive, while the partners have asked the Government to reopen negotiations.

The same day that the judge authorized the Civil Guard to appear at the PSOE headquarters in Madrid, from Carrer Pallars in Barcelona, the PSC sent all the documentation related to its 2024 electoral campaign. Although the request was addressed to the PSOE, the Catalan socialists wanted to get ahead by emphasizing that everything was transparent and audited by the Court of Accounts. With this information, the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the armed institute is not satisfied and has filed a claim for additional information with the National Court, which Judge Santiago Pedraz has accepted.

I don't know if the two Tanzanian priests and the two Filipinos who make up the Augustinian community in Barcelona will tell Leo XIV, when he visits the church of Sant Agustí in the Raval on June 10, that it was in that church that the Assembly of Catalonia was founded, the great coalition of anti-Franco forces in the country. It was the year 1971. Time was time. When the Catalan Church stood shoulder to shoulder with those fighting for individual and collective freedoms. When rectors sheltered striking workers and prevented the "grisos" from entering. When Comissions Obreres was founded in a parish (Sant Medir, la Bordeta, 1964), when students barricaded themselves in convents (la Caputxinada, Sarrià, 1966), or the most symbolic monastery was the chosen setting to "christen" a party that would govern Catalonia for decades (Convergència, Montserrat, 1974). It was the time of Escarré, Jubany, Cassià Maria Just, Xirinacs, Ragué, Ballarín, and many worker priests... It was a time when the Church had a better reputation than it does today. More practitioners, more religious vocations, more complicity with laypeople, more credibility, no reports of pedophilia.

The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, will not have to appear at this week's plenary session to explain the PSOE scandals because ERC backed down and allied with Comuns to vote against his appearance on Tuesday. However, the head of the executive was not saved from the opposition's attacks and his partners' reproaches this Wednesday in a more than tense session to control the Government.

It was a debate with a predictable conclusion: a clash between the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, and the President of the Xunta de Galicia, Alfonso Rueda. The former, a staunch defender of the new financing model agreed between the PSOE and ERC; the latter, representing the PP, as a detractor of the proposal. And in between, Imanol Pradales, the Basque lehendakari, who watched from the sidelines defending his economic concert as a "rara avis" in Spain. All this, in a round table at this year's conference of the Cercle d'Economia. "I don't want any advantage or privilege for Catalonia, but I also don't want us to be left behind," argued Illa, before adding that Catalonia "will not ask for permission to lead and to make respectful proposals." "I will not ask anyone for permission either, but an agreement must be reached," Rueda replied.

With the budget agreement under its arm, Salvador Illa landed this Monday at the annual conferences of the Cercle d'Economia with the tranquility of presenting himself to the Catalan business fabric with an "stability" that the sector values – in the words of the Cercle's own president, Teresa Garcia-Milà. If the orbital railway line – which must connect cities in the second metropolitan ring, from Vilanova i la Geltrú to Mataró, without passing through Barcelona – was the key to the pact with ERC for the accounts, the President of the Generalitat has taken advantage of the platform that the Cercle has given him to put infrastructure back on the table and make an announcement: the Government will mobilize 3,300 million euros from public-private collaboration to "accelerate strategic infrastructures". "Now is the time to recover a system that has been stalled since 2010, a public-private model for infrastructure," Illa defended before the Catalan business community.

Today, June 1, marks eight years since Sánchez has been president of the Spanish government thanks to the motion of no confidence he won against Rajoy. It was the first time a candidate reached the presidency through such a vote.Eight years later we have had the pardons, the amnesty still not completed because the Supreme Court is granting extensions, the demobilized independence movement, Commuter Rail by bus, Illa as President of the Generalitat, an unevenly distributed economic growth, the difficulty, not to say impossibility, of finding a flat, and very strained public services.Without going any further, Catalan doctors are called upon not to do any more overtime, under the eloquent slogan Not one more minute, because they don't finish the work they have and the on-call shifts have already turned days into three eight-hour shifts. Doctors want a response from the administration, like the one teachers have already received, who reached an agreement with the Department of Education this past weekend. This agreement will be submitted for a vote by teachers until Thursday. At the risk of being wrong, I believe that teachers have achieved a good part of what they were asking for, the strike has pushed teachers' pockets to the limit and families' patience, and therefore, the most logical thing would be for teachers to vote yes to an agreement reached by unions that did not settle for the first agreement signed by UGT and CCOO. The minister Niubó said this morning that a "no" would lead to the chaos of the education system. With this reality in the streets, political power continues in its own world.Sánchez, who will still take three weeks to explain himself in Congress, is betting everything on the Pope's visit, which will arrive this Saturday in Madrid, the "unity" effect of the Football World Cup, the August holidays and reaching autumn and having 2027 within reach. He himself says it: “The tricksters with their maneuvers, and we to govern until 2027 and beyond, whatever the Spanish want” “Until 2027 and beyond” sounds like it’s from the astronaut of lawfare, will not be new to them. In this analysis, we already told them weeks ago that the Spanish government not only wants to hold on until 2027, but they are also considering re-investing Sánchez.And the one who has already tied his destiny to that of Sánchez is Illa. At an event yesterday in Tarragona, he said, in Spanish so that the Spanish TV channels could broadcast it without subtitles and Sánchez would not be alone, that Sánchez was a “moral benchmark”.

In this chapter we will talk about Bad Bunny, his selfie with Salvador Illa, his snub to Shakira and Kylie Minogue. "And is this news?" is the question we often see in comments on articles about gossip magazines and pop culture. And, obviously, they are not news that occupy newspaper front pages, but they are issues that we often discuss with friends or family around a table or at the bar counter. And this is what we do in this podcast: move to a venue to review some social chronicle news that serve not only to keep up with the most prominent gossip, but also to talk about love, friendship or breakups.

The Central Operational Unit of the Civil Guard entered the PSOE headquarters this morning to request information. They are looking for an alleged illegal financing network of the party. Let's see, a police entry reinforces the feeling of guilt of the investigated person, which, in the era of narrative over facts, is ideal for those who wish harm to the suspect. But if anywhere we know what effect the interested administration of the judicial instruction and police investigation has with a specific intention, it is in Catalonia.