The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, once again claims the need for housing opportunities to be guaranteed in Catalonia and throughout the State, after the death this Wednesday of Maricarmen Abascal, the 87-year-old woman who became a symbol of the fight for the right to a home following her eviction in Madrid. During a meeting with BBVA and Mexican businessmen held this Thursday at the Pedralbes Palace in Barcelona, Illa equated the current situation in the housing sector with the impact suffered by the productive sector after the outbreak of COVID-19.

Change of tone from Salvador Illa. This Wednesday was the first plenary session of Parliament after the total amnesty for Carles Puigdemont and the exiles, but also of the early election in Spain, and the President of the Generalitat has fully entered the pre-election campaign in the control session. The socialist leader, and great defender of Pedro Sánchez, has referred time and again to the Spanish elections of November 29 and has launched a forceful attack against the opposition. "Three acronyms, PP, Vox, and Junts; one single vote, blocking access to housing," he snapped, in reference to the two decrees that the three formations rejected last week.

The Catalan political year has begun as it ended: to the rhythm of crises and major announcements from the Palau de la Generalitat. In this week's general policy debate, Salvador Illa reaffirmed the measures he had already made public—especially when addressing such burning issues as housing or education—and added new ones. However, the homework is piling up for the President of the Generalitat, and the opposition and his own parliamentary partners, ERC and Comuns, already demanded "deeds and not words" and that he abandon the "grandiloquence" to really solve the problems, "now and not five years from now".

During the first six months of 2026, incidents in which someone fired a bullet in Catalonia have increased by 45%. That is to say, a shooting has been recorded every two days, with a toll of six dead and seventeen injured. If cases where someone has brandished a firearm, even if they did not get to use it, are added to this, there is one incident a day. And, in these cases, real weapons are becoming increasingly common: they already represent 42% of the total, when until recently the majority were simulated. Behind this increase are various causes, such as the fact that weapons are becoming cheaper, are more available, and there are more criminal groups that need them to defend their businesses, which are closely linked to drugs.

This morning, Junts per Catalunya decided to launch a rocket into the sky, a rocket that can be seen from afar and indicates to everyone, for when another electoral cycle comes, that it is Junts and not Aliança that is the only alternative to the PSC-Esquerra-Comuns investiture and budget bloc. And that is why the president of the Junts group, Mònica Sales, has announced an action that had never been seen before: she wants Parliament to vote on the censure of President Salvador Illa: “You, President, are the worst president modern Catalonia has had (...) That is why I announce to you that today the Junts parliamentary group will present a motion to censure you as president of the Generalitat”

The second day of the general policy debate has served to confirm the distance between Salvador Illa's government and the main opposition party, Junts, but also to confirm the pressure that his partners, Esquerra and Comuns, are willing to exert until the end of the term. The 'Juntaires' are the ones who have attacked the President of the Generalitat the hardest: the president of the parliamentary group, Mònica Sales, has described Illa as being the "worst president that modern Catalonia has had" and has proposed censuring him. Esquerra and Comuns have not been at all flattering either; quite the contrary, they have urged him to comply once and for all with the investiture agreements and also those derived from this year's budget. Illa, as usual, has chosen to dodge the criticism, especially that from Junts, and with an optimistic tone has once again extended his hand to all political forces, except Vox and Aliança Catalana.

“What is good for Barcelona is good for Catalonia, and what is good for Catalonia is good for Spain”. This transitive formula summarized the political thought of Pasqual Maragall and his party, in the years of the so-called Olympic spirit. Unity of action, mutual benefit. Catalonia is Spain on the condition that Spain is Catalonia. Shared passion thanks to sporting success. Els segadors and the Royal March playing consecutively when the Bourbon king enters a stadium with a republican name. It is an approach that connects with the federal tradition. A double antidote against assimilationism and against independence. And an alternative to the Pujolist project, which was to make of Catalonia, little by little –as if nothing– a kind of pseudo-state.But the Olympic success passed, and the dreams of Maragall and Pujol proved impossible. Maragall, as president, saw how his Catalan Spain became a mirage. And the failed reform of the Statute made it clear that Catalonia could not achieve real political power without posing a direct challenge to the State. The emotional distance between Catalonia and Spain was not only expressed in the rise of sovereignty, but also in the laments of the PSC: Montilla spoke of “disaffection”, and Maragall himself, playing with reversing the terms, warned in a famous article that “Madrid se va”. Despite the warnings, the clash of trains was inevitable.The years of the 'Procés' left the PSC in a very bad state. Its leaders promised themselves that they would never again allow an overdose of Catalanism to jeopardize their relationship with the PSOE. Then came the 155, the repression, and the fall of Rajoy's PP. When two socialist presidents coincided again in Catalonia and Spain, Salvador Illa promised to focus on management and move away from identity-related disquisitions. But he had plans. Illa, in the style of Pujol, that is to say, without stridency, has executed a strategy in favor of his version of the Olympic ideal, that of "Catalonia is Spain and Spain is Catalonia," with the aim of dissolving the mental and political wall between both realities; his ultimate goal is that, in the eyes of the Catalans, the State and the Generalitat be two extensions of the same body –that is, of the same political and emotional reality.Illa has been skillful enough to carry out this policy despite depending on the votes of the pro-independence parties. For example, Junts managed to secure the commitment to Catalanize the second TVE channel; the socialists christened it 2Cat (a name that is not at all innocent) and used it to broadcast the matches of la roja in Catalan. ERC demanded the transfer of the Rodalies service, and the result has been a joint consortium that will encompass, under a new brand, all railway services, both those that run well and those that are a disaster. Thus, management and responsibility are diluted. The same formula is applied to the new tax consortium, and it serves for large infrastructure, cultural facilities, foreign policy... Catalonia is Spain, Spain is Catalonia. The best way to tame the Catalans is to give them a taste of real power: as the Count-Duke of Olivares said four centuries ago.The question is whether this strategic commitment, which is also a party policy, will be able to survive the current situation, with Pedro Sánchez cornered and the Spanish nationalist right lying in wait. If the PP comes to power, it will have two options regarding Catalonia: follow its own instincts (and those of Vox) or, in a fit of lucidity, maintain this joint relationship with the Catalan government, which is the best way to strengthen the presence of the State in Catalonia without it being noticed.

Few –perhaps none– public matters are more important than the improvement of the deplorable state of education in Catalonia. That is why the messages that President Illa dedicated to it in his speech last Monday are worrying. Fundamentally, he specified two objectives: to increase the budgetary effort to 6% of the GDP (as established by the current education law of Catalonia) and to build a “consensus with the parties and the educational community” after a “national debate on the future of education”.Why are these two objectives worrying? Firstly, because the current law—within the framework of which this constant deterioration of educational results has occurred—was already the product of a consensus, which was already celebrated at the time—in 2009—as if it guaranteed something good. In fact, the only dissenting voices were so for reasons that had very little to do with the quality of education (on the part of IC, the persistence of a state-subsidized private sector, and on the part of the right, linguistic issues). Will a new consensus diagnose and rectify the causes of the failure by stepping on whatever toes are necessary, or, on the contrary, will it become an exercise in avoiding difficulties and leaving everything as it is? The second is much more likely than the first, because the dynamic of consensuses is normally to agree on what is easy and to sideline what is not. In fact, the immediate enthusiasm of Junts in accepting the president's proposal makes this clear, given that parties do not get enthusiastic when it comes to making decisions that disturb the status quo.As for increasing budgetary resources, one cannot be against it, but it must be pointed out that empirical evidence—both internationally and in Spain—shows that there is no relationship between expenditure per student and results (to be more specific, the OECD estimates that there is one when the amount allocated does not reach 75,000 dollars per student between the ages of 6 and 15, but not beyond this figure, and ours is much higher than this limit). If there were a relationship, Madrid would not be at the forefront of Spanish communities in terms of results, where the Basque Country or Extremadura would be. From the point of view of equity, an analysis carried out in Spain to measure the impact of budgetary effort on "academic resilience"—that is, the ability of students to overcome the level associated with their socioeconomic status—concludes that this impact is negligible, which is to say that an improvement in the results of our students from immigrant backgrounds or poverty is not to be expected simply by pouring more money into the system.In conclusion, Illa's recipe could perfectly lead us to an equally mediocre situation, but a much more expensive one. That, of course, after many hugs between the party representatives and even the social partners.Minister Niubó does not enthuse me (how could she enthuse me if she described as “policy-fiction” the hypothesis that the PISA test results would have been even worse if the Catalan centers, instead of excluding 23.2% of the students because they presented linguistic, cognitive, or behavioral disabilities, had limited themselves to excluding 5%?). She does not enthuse me, but I must say that her statements on Catalunya Ràdio four days before President Illa's speech seem much more accurate and, therefore, promising.Where the president says to increase the budgetary allocation, Niubó spoke of the need to “reorder the system before putting more resources into it”. Where he says to build a consensus, she said “recover the role of books and reading”, strengthen school libraries and “maintain inclusion, but placing more emphasis on educational success”; that is to say, she was pointing to concrete changes without waiting to reach a consensus on them.Does the situation of education demand more resources and demand consensus? Yes, but, above all, it demands leadership from a government that proposes reforms that will not please everyone (how could they please everyone if excellence is always the product of effort?) and that must represent a break with some practices that have been imposed in the name of equity and the well-being of children and that, therefore, some will consider must be defended tooth and nail.Precisely because the current model is the result of a consensus, modifying it requires courage. Will the Government have it? I do not know, but its absence would necessarily translate into the country's mediocrity and the rise of the parties that present themselves as capable of ending a situation that gives multiple signs of decay, which are not precisely those that participated in the 2009 consensus.

The search for good neighborliness is always profitable, even more so if we are talking about Catalonia and Extremadura, with thousands of Catalans who have their family roots there. But good neighborliness, to be real, must be based on truth and respect.

President Illa has decided to break the monotony, conscious, perhaps, that it was trapping him. His restrained tone was rewarded during the bewilderment of the 'Procés' aftermath and, by making a virtue of calm, he grasped the country's need to lower the tone and take a pause. With this criterion, and with his rejection of shrillness, Illa has been making progress, at a time when the exercise of conjuncturally assuming the framework of the possible seemed to be imposing itself.

Salvador Illa should launch in the "coming days" a round of contacts with parliamentary groups to promote a national pact on education that should serve to address the crisis the sector is experiencing. And in these conversations, he will also invite the far-right parties, Vox and Aliança Catalana. As the Government spokesperson, Sílvia Paneque, explained, the executive always includes all groups that make up the parliamentary arch in these types of calls, but added that neither Vox nor Aliança Catalana "have ever attended" these meetings. "The Government prioritizes agreements with groups that do not have hate speech," added Paneque. There is no established calendar yet and the Government has not specified whether Salvador Illa himself will be at these meetings, but Paneque stated that the president's "will" is for this round to begin "as soon as possible".

Yesterday, President Illa gave himself a bath of solemnity to highlight that he has reached the midpoint of his term with a budget for next year, a project to improve the financing system, and the country with the independence movement faded. And all of this is no small thing, considering he only has 42 deputies. Stability of today versus the independence paralysis of ten years, would be the message.Illa gave a speech, therefore, there were no uncomfortable questions nor did he make any self-criticism for the management problems, which was precisely what he boasted about in the election campaign two years ago. On the contrary, the idea was to convey an inspiring and visionary message (the conference was titled 'The future is here') on a quiet night.And within this presidential framework, the president made the announcement intended to make headlines: Illa will promote a great educational pact.“As president of the Generalitat, I am calling from this moment on the whole country to a debate on education, a debate to take action, a debate that will lead us to reach a new great country consensus for education. I will soon initiate a round of meetings with the political forces with parliamentary representation, I will ask the Education Council of Catalonia to be the instrument for this debate, from the knowledge and pluralism it represents. I commit to ensuring that the debate includes, now yes, reaching the 6% of public investment as established by the education law approved by the Parliament of Catalonia in the year 2009. A 6% of the resources of the country's gross domestic product destined for education. We must take Catalan education to excellence”.This has been their way of admitting that, after two years of management, this school year has begun with a teachers' strike and the conflict is far from over. We are in favor of this pact. Not today. Days ago, as you will surely remember if you follow us regularly. 15 days ago, on September 1st, I said here: “A country pact for education. Now or never, because what is at stake is the country itself”. And a week ago I stated that “reaching a great country agreement for education, thinking of the students and the future of the country, is increasingly necessary”. Therefore, it would be good news if this pact turned out well. It could turn out well, because we have the talent and it seems (Illa announced that it would move towards 6% of public investment in Education) that we will have the means. But the greatness and generosity of the Government, the opposition, the unions, the teachers, and the families are needed. I insist, hopefully this pact can be developed, because the future of the country depends on it, but the Government must admit that it has not been at all inspired when it comes to setting the course.Beyond the specific announcements, beyond what is said, there is what is meant. And yesterday, the president wanted to send a message of self-esteem, even of the joy of living, as when he said that “Catalonia is a wonderful place, where wonderful things happen”. I also believe it, but when a politician wants to generate enthusiasm in Catalonia, he must keep in mind that this is a country for which the Spanish Constitution and the Statute of Catalonia, and the financing, are too small, very small, and that the common regime does not inspire. And that this morning there are people looking at Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, who have signed a document more declarative than effective to form a common front and pressure London for independence and thinks that what is most exciting is giving a state to the nation.

Between 1984 and 2024, invariably, the independence movement (or, rather, the sovereignty movement) always held a majority in the Parliament of Catalonia. But the end of the 'Procés' sank the electoral prospects of the parties that had driven it and cleared the way for Salvador Illa to enter the Palau de la Generalitat. The third socialist president also arrived with all the cards to break the curse of one-term presidents and, with practically no opposition, it was expected that he could consolidate his leadership.

"If I preside over the Generalitat, the Minister of the Interior will be Núria Parlon, who has been excellent in security policies, and, since I want to professionalize management in Catalonia, the Director General of the Police will be Josep Lluís Trapero, who is an example of a public servant." The star announcement of the then-candidate Salvador Illa in the last debate of the 2024 electoral campaign was to place the Parlon-Trapero tandem at the head of security decisions. Illa (and also Trapero) was warned of the contraindications of placing a police officer to act as a politician, but, already as president, the message he wanted to convey was one of full confidence in a decorated expert –a media protagonist and, today also a cinematic one, of the pursuit of the La Rambla terrorists– and, incidentally, to repair the injustice he perceived that the Aragonès government had committed by dismissing him as head of the Mossos.

The news broke early this morning: Josep Lluís Trapero has resigned as Director General of the Police. Trapero's decision came on a key day for the Mossos d'Esquadra, as a meeting of the police leadership had been called for this Wednesday morning at the Department of the Interior to announce who would be the new Chief Commissioner of the force, but Trapero's resignation has caused surprise among the high command of the Mossos and the Interior Department.Quick reminder: at the Interior Department there is a minister, who has a civilian political number two, who was now Trapero, and a uniformed, police number two, who until today was Miquel Esquius, who is retiring. I say this so that you are not confused, because Trapero had been the police chief (it was when he was promoted to major and was dismissed by the 155 in 2017) but now he was a political appointee by decision of Salvador Illa, who in the 2024 election campaign, like someone pulling an ace out of their sleeve, announced that Trapero would be his Director General of the Police.

Even though it is also starting to have –needless to say– its deniers, the PISA report continues to be a reliable and reference instrument in the educational field. The dismal results obtained by the Spanish state in the latest edition, clearly below the European average in reading and mathematics, confirm all fears. The unrest of teachers is expressed through strikes and protests on the first day of class: criticizing and devaluing these protests is a temptation that some politicians and commentators fall into, but that is falling into the classic error of killing the messenger. With their mobilizations, teachers and professors come to give the same bad news as the PISA report: the situation of public education is not sustainable and it is necessary to work on it in an extremely urgent and serious way. It is necessary to work on reality and not on words, speeches, or slogans. There is an inversely proportional relationship between the highly delicate nature of the educational system and the flood of voices that feel emboldened to have their say with pretensions of pontificating. Those who best know the classrooms are those who work there day by day, and it is them who must be listened to and followed.The chaos is widespread throughout the Spanish state, and Catalonia is no exception: not even with the deviation caused by a biased sample that has invalidated the tests (something much worse than a simple error, in a Government that has made an alleged good management of public services its banner), the results obtained by Catalonia are not significantly better than in Spain. Catalonia, which has always stood out for being an advanced country in terms of educational quality in relation to its environment, does have reasons to speak, in this case, of decline, of free fall, or of any metaphor for defeat. The Basque Country is not spared either, which was the other nation on the Peninsula that had traditionally stood out in educational matters.The right to education must be respected, says President Salvador Illa. Indeed, only this right has some surnames that cannot be left unsaid: the right to public and quality education must be respected. And in Catalan. The autonomous communities have transferred educational competence, and in many – governed by the PP or by the PP with Vox – a frontal offensive against public education is observed at all levels, from primary school to university. In the Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands, and also in Aragon, the offensive is also against the Catalan language. The aim is to turn public school into a space of conflict, to scare families and redirect them to charter and private schools. In Catalonia, the political and judicial offensive against those who hate the Catalan school comes from way back, and all kinds of discourses and theories are added that intend to use teachers and students as guinea pigs for all kinds of false debates. Let the teachers teach, let the students learn, and respect the right to strike and the right to public, quality education in Catalan.

Tomorrow school begins, and it will start with the teachers' strike that the unions already announced when the school year ended, around Saint John's Day. The Government has not managed to deactivate the strike, even though it has had two months to do so. The unions feel strong and are carrying momentum based on real shortcomings, dragged on for a long time, and this protest speed of the unions cannot be stopped with a standard negotiation. Education in Catalonia needs a top-to-bottom reformulation, and the turbulence that will begin tomorrow will continue for several months. We already said it here last week: if there is any public service that requires a generous, country-wide pact, it is education. But today all the front-page headlines are for the victory of Alternative for Germany in Saxony. The far-right wins in a German state talking about closing borders, expelling criminals, and reclaiming Germany for the Germans and not for immigrants. The reasons for this victory resonate here: voters who feel abandoned by the traditional parties, who have become impoverished, who have seen the street landscape change, resentful of what they consider the failure of reunification, who pay many taxes that do not improve public services, etc.This resentment based on real events, but which is conveniently stirred up by the verbal violence of social networks, ends in a protest vote, the one that hurts the most, against the system.The problem is that these parties do not have solutions for these problems, and in the long run they only end up making things worse. And behind the anti-immigration discourse there is an anti-democracy discourse. This vote is an invitation to gradually change democracy for an authoritarian and violent system (Russia, China, Trump's United States) that seems to solve problems because it does not accept the limits of these trifles called laws or human rights.It is true that the usual parties do not provide the best answers either, and for a long time, the normal, ordinary people who used to vote for them have become fed up because they do not listen, and because they do not notice that the wonders they explain during the campaign improve their lives. Agreed, the solution to serious problems is never quick, but the lifelong parties or ideological spaces are more comfortable with dialectical fighting than defending people from powerful private interests. An example: this morning President Illa was interviewed on 3cat and he assured that the government of the Generalitat is assessing whether to take the leader of Aliança Catalana to the Prosecutor's Office, Sílvia Orriols, for her tweets about the fatal attack in Manresa.Ricard Ustrell: Will they report Sílvia Orriols' tweets to the Public Prosecutor's Office as a hate crime?Salvador Illa: Whenever it is observed that there are behaviors that violate the legal framework and that incite hatred, the Government will act. We are assessing it, and if that is the case, in this instance and with everyone we will act the same.

These days we are seeing how the Ceuta crisis is causing Pedro Sánchez to collapse. The Spanish president had found a tone and a profile that allowed him to take advantage of the gaps produced in a Europe that is brazenly shifting towards post-democratic authoritarianism. This had worked for him in Spain and abroad, at a time when the left is rapidly blurring. Management—and it was noticeable day by day—wears you down, but a certain sense of anticipation and a style contrasted with the permanent state of irritation of the right gave the president some leeway.

The cuts at the Volkswagen group have already been approved by the supervisory board. However, it is not clear what will happen to the group's Spanish brand, Seat. While the German press reported on Thursday that the intention is for the Seat brand to disappear by 2029 at the latest, this Friday the Martorell-based company claimed its role within the Volkswagen group, but without clarifying in any case what its future will be.