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Catalans living abroad will be able to cast their vote by electronic means by next June. The system, pioneer in Spain, will have to be in accordance with the LOREG, the Spanish Organic Law of General Electoral Regime. According to Catalan Minister for Public Administration, Meritxell Borràs, the electronic vote is within Spain’s legality and, therefore, “it will be nonsense” for the Spanish Government to impede its implementation. The initative will help Catalans living abroad “to exercise a fundamental right”. The LOREG and the ‘requested vote’ system, introduced in 2010, dragged out the whole process and meant more agents being involved, which  resulted in lower participation. Indeed, only 14,000 of the 200,000 people registered to vote were able to cast their ballot on the last Catalan Elections.

The archaeological site of Empúries, on the Costa Brava, continues to provide new discoveries.After three weeks of excavations,  a ceramic-vase containing 200 silver denarius dating from the 1st century B.C was found. It is the largest treasure that has ever appeared on the Roman site. Archaeologists believe that the treasure would have been hidden by its owner in one of the rooms of the houses which are also being excavated and that he would have lost it forever due to a fire which hit the property. The discovery is in very good conditions and the experts will no analyse all the pieces to find out its origins. Besides this treasure, 24 amphorae of wine have been discovered in the cellar ??the house, a slab of bronze -'simpulum'- to extract wine and two bracelets. 

The Port of Barcelona continues to break records. During the first half of 2016, the number of containers handled, a reliable indicator of economic activity, exceeded one million, the best figure ever registered for a six-month period. This represents a growth of 13% in comparison to the same period last year, according to Port de Barcelona’s President, Sixte Cambra. Freight traffic in the Port of Barcelona made up a total of 24.2 million tonnes, which is 4% more than the same period last year and the amount of exports grew by 54% in comparison to the record figure registered in 2008. According to Cambra, these figures “consolidate the recovery of freight traffic and accelerate the figures of the Port of Barcelona’s activity”.

The Catalan government has set the maximum alert level for forest fires’ risk in 30 regions, most of them in central Catalonia, due to the high temperatures registered in the last few days, which exceeded 40 degrees in some areas. On Tuesday alone, 86 wild fires hit different regions of Catalonia simultaneously. However, the most important one occurred this Tuesday in Vallbona de les Monges, a small village 40 kilometres west from the city of Lleida. In less than 5 hours, the fire burned nearly 900 hectares, most of them cereal crops. The firefighters sent 55 land resources and 3 aerial’s, which achieved to stabilise the fire by Wednesday morning. However, they continue to water the perimeter to prevent the fire from reviving.

More and more people in Catalonia are turning to ecologically friendly food. According to the Perception and Consumption of Organic Food barometer, half of all Catalans consumed ecologically friendly food during 2015. On the way towards an ecologically and environmentally friendly city, Barcelona City Hall is promoting some initiatives to make Barcelona a more ecological city in many facets like health, sustainability, trade and social welfare. Green Markets are integrated into the new municipal policies. The aim is to promote small- and medium-sized local and ecologically friendly Catalan producers within a maximum radius of 150 km around Barcelona. The intention of the City Hall is to spread the campaign to six markets this year and, bit by bit, to transform the whole network of markets in Barcelona into an example of respect for the environment. 

Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, accepted pro-independence radical left CUP’s demand to hold a meeting “in the coming days” in order to discuss Puigdemont’s approach to the vote of confidence. Indeed, the vote that the Catalan President will submit himself to in September is regarded differently by the two main pro-independence parties in the Parliament. While governing cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’ considers voting in favour of Puigdemont’s presidency and backing the budget for 2017 “indivisible”, CUP understands that renewing the confidence in Puigdemont is part of the agreed pro-independence roadmap but not necessarily linked to the bill. The Catalan President extended the invitation to other political forces as well.

Barcelona’s ‘Palau de la Música’, one of the most symbolic cultural institutions in Catalonia, hosted the first of the commemorative events to celebrate the 80^th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) this Monday. Besides its cultural content, ‘Palau de la Música’ was the place were worldwide famous cellist Pau Casals carried out his last rehearsal before the outbreak of the war, on the 18^th of June 1936. Thus, and bearing in mind the strong component that Casals has as a symbol of Catalan culture, and also for his pacifist fight, the institutional event, called ‘The Last Rehearsal’, commemorates that day. The event was organised by the Catalan Ministry for Foreign Affairs, International Relations and Transparency, and aimed to pay tribute to “all those who suffered war both in a direct or indirect way”. 

Former Catalan President, Artur Mas, along with former Catalan Vice President, Joana Ortega and former Minister for Education, Irene Rigau won’t be accused for misappropriation of public funds in relation to the 9-N symbolic vote on independence. This is what the public prosecutor announced this Monday, after considering that the expenses related to the non-binding consultation were made before the suspension enacted by the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC). Nevertheless, the attorneys asked Catalonia’s Supreme Court (TSJC) to ignore the accused defences’ petition to file the case and summon the trio for the other crimes included in the lawsuit, which are alleged disobedience and perversion of justice.

Pro-independence forces, governing cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’ and radical left CUP, approved this Monday an agreed proposal which foresees the following steps to take on the roadmap towards Catalonia’s independence. The document establishes that the “Constitutive Process” will be divided into three stages: first there will be a participative process amongst the citizens, the second phase will imply passing the so-called three laws of disconnection, calling for new elections and writing the draft of the Catalan Constitution. At this point, the text mentions a “democratic unilateral mechanism which will allow to call for the Constitutive Assembly”, the body which will be responsible for writing the Catalan Constitution. The last stage will be a referendum to put this new Constitution to vote. 

The location and identity of 4,700 disappeared during Spanish Civil War remains unknown, 80 years after the conflict broke out. In order to recover historic memory and prevent these facts and its consequences from being forgotten or neglected, many organisations have claimed to reopen mass graves and cancel the martial courts applied to many citizens who were against Franco's dictatorship. "Spain continues to be the second country in the world, after Cambodia, with the higher number of people who underwent enforced disappearance and whose mortal remains have never been recovered nor identified", stated ‘Judges for Democracy' spokeswoman, Begoña López. 

Catalonia will keep the terrorist threat level at 4 out of 5 but extra security measures will be put in place. Thus, ‘Mossos d’Esquadra’ will dedicate 30% of their resources to fighting terrorist threats, as they are currently doing, and increase this to 40% in Barcelona. The Catalan Police will also reinforce the anti-terrorist surveillance, especially in the most touristic places. The Spanish Police have already put in place extra security measures on the French border, at La Junquera, to control the traffic and will be stopping vehicles in random checks, asking for documentation and searching for suspicious materials in the boot. These measures are in response to the terrorist attack which killed 84 people in the French city of Nice this past Thursday night. 

Health organisations in Catalonia received 43.5 MEUR from the EU Horizon 2020 programme to fund projects in this field between 2014 and 2015. This amount represents 42.5% of the total allocated by this European initiative to the Spanish State, according to figures released this Friday by the Spanish Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), a public business entity which belongs to the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Madrid is second on the ranking, with 25.6 MEUR received, followed by the Valencian Community, which got 8.2 MEUR. The Catalan Department for Health has stated that it considers these figures to prove “Catalonia’s clear leadership in health research”.

The terrorist attack which killed 84 people on Thursday night in the French coastal city of Nice, while thousands were celebrating Bastille Day on the streets, has been responded to with international condolences. “Today we want to add Catalonia’s voice to those raised in many democratic countries, which respect freedom and religious and cultural diversity”, stated Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont and referred to Nice’s citizens as “neighbours and brothers”. “France’s mourning is also Catalonia’s”, he added and warned that the terrorists “won’t break [our] cohesion nor dispel the fraternity” towards the victims. Puigdemont’s statement came ahead of the one minute’s silence held on Barcelona’s Plaça Sant Jaume, the square between the Catalan Government’s headquarters and Barcelona’s City Hall.

The 21st edition of the Investment Forum, organised by the public business competitiveness and internationalisation agency ACCIÓ, gathered together 700 entrepreneurs and investors in order to find funding and boost new business projects. This Thursday, at the opening of the Forum, Catalan Minister for Business and Knowledge, Jordi Baiget, emphasised “the need to build a Catalan network of entrepreneurship” based on the “international synergies” that emerge from events such as the Mobile World Congress and the Smart City Fair. According to Baiget, Catalonia is an international pole for entrepreneurs recognised worldwide and it is necessary to keep on working in other to consolidate it. The Catalan Minister also praised Catalans’ entrepreneurial ability, as they captured 800 MEUR in ‘venture capital’ projects in 2015.