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The pace of the Catalan economic recovery is "accelerating" according to Miquel Valls, the President of Barcelona's Chamber of Commerce. This is especially apparent in the second quarter of this year, which saw the interannual GDP grow by 1.3%, compared to the 0.4% growth registered in the first quarter of 2014. This rapid acceleration will oblige the Chamber to review in its autumn report its economic forecasts for Catalonia in 2014 and 2015, which are currently set at 1.2% and 1.5% respectively. Although there is still uncertainty to exactly what shape the new economic climate will take, the new predictions of growth could be above 1.5% for 2014 and 2% in 2015, indicated Valls.

Barcelona's Metro L2 will be affected by renovation work from next Monday the 4th of August till Sunday the 24^th of August. The stretch between Passeig de Gràcia and Clot metro stations will be closed due to the improvement of the railway's mechanical condition. According to the Catalan Ministry of Planning and Sustainability, the partial suspension of the metro service was planned for this August in order to minimise disruptions to travellers, since during this period the demand for urban mobility is lower. However, during the closure of the affected L2 stretch, other public transport alternatives will be provided to customers.

This year's edition of Barcelona's performing arts summer festival, Grec, attracted around 80,000 spectators and achieved a 58.15% capacity utilisation in the shows which require payment. According to provisional statistics, taken before the event was over, for the 79 shows that made up the summer festival there were 136,291 seats available and 67,623 tickets were sold, filling 49.61% of the potential capacity. However, overall there was total of 79,254 spectators. Last year 66,466 people attended the shows which required payment and 55,766 tickets were sold. The total number of spectators who attended the festival this year, both paying customers and those who went to free shows, amounted to 127,471 people, whilst in 2013 there were 119,000 individuals.

On Thursday, the Catalan Finance Minister, Andreu Mas-Colell, admitted that Catalonia will not be able to meet the strict 1% deficit target imposed by the Spanish Government for 2014. In fact, the Catalan Executive had previously warned on several occasions that this deficit target was not realistic, despite the great austerity efforts undertaken over the past four years. In addition, despite Spain's economic recovery of 2014 – which is led by Catalonia – and therefore the increase of taxable activity, the Spanish Government will reduce the Catalan executive's funds by €500 million this year while the deficit target becomes stricter. On Wednesday, the Catalan President, Artur Mas, already stated that, considering the austerity measures adopted since 2011, further budget cuts cannot be undertaken in 2014 without dramatically damaging basic public services such as healthcare and education. Instead of relaxing the deficit target or transferring pending funds and debts to the Catalan Government, the Spanish Finance Ministry will reduce the interest rate that the Autonomous Communities have to pay back to 1% for the loans of the Liquifidity Fund (FLA).

During the first half of the year, the revenues of the Catalan multinational pharmaceutical company Grifols rose by 16.7% to €1.61 bilion, 75% of which came from the Bioscience division and 18% from Diagnostic. Compared to the first quarter, the proportion of total sales generated by each of the group’s divisions remains unchanged after the acquisition of Novartis' diagnostic business. The world´s third-largest blood-derivate product maker, Grifols obtained a net profit of €224.8 million, 23% more compared with the same period last year, as reported by the company to the Spanish Stock Exchange Authority (CNMV). These positive figures were achieved due to the maintenance of financial costs, made possible by improved financial conditions, despite having increased debt in absolute terms.

On Wednesday the World Health Organisation (WHO) appointed Barcelona-based researcher Pedro Alonso as the new Director of its Global Malaria Program. Alonso is a key figure in the global fight against malaria and has lead research into a vaccine to combat the life-threatening illness. He has been involved with WHO since 2011, when the organisation appointed him as the Chair of the GTS Steering Committee on the Global Technical Strategy on Malaria. Alonso is currently the Director of the Barcelona Institute for International Health Research. He is also the Head of the Department of International Health and Tropical Medicine at Barcelona's Hospital Clínic and a lecturer at Barcelona University. The physician is due to start his new position in October and is expected to give his formal recommendation on the strategy against malaria in the first quarter of 2015.

The 12^th Edition of Sala Montjuïc, an open air film festival which takes place every summer in Barcelona, is in full swing, and organisers estimate that over 30,000 people will have attended the event by the end of its five week running period. The festival runs from the 6^th of July to the 8^th of August and hosts evenings of live music, short films and feature length movies three times a week. An average of 2,000 spectators a night attend the screenings, which are located next to an old military castle on Montjuïc, a small hill facing Barcelona's harbour. Families can rent deckchairs, bring food and drink and enjoy watching the film whilst seated on the lawn alongside the castle's wall, in what used to be the ancient moat. This year one of the highlights included a special screening of the 1927 German classic Metropolis on the 18^th of July which was accompanied by a live jazz band.

On Wednesday the Catalan pharmaceutical company Almirall announced that they have sold the rights to their respiratory subsidiary to the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca for the initial value of €653 million ($875 million), to be paid when signing the deal. Then, further payments could reach up to an additional €910 million ($1.22 billion), depending on the AstraZeneca's success in product development, new product launches and sales. This news comes after Almirall announced a €19.1 million net profit in the first two quarters of this year, an 8.5% increase from the same period last year. With this new operation it is expected that "a significant number" of employees from the Catalan company's respiratory subsidiary will be transferred to AstraZeneca.

The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, and the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, finally met this Wednesday in Madrid to talk about the self-determination process and also about economic, social and institutional issues. Mas told Rajoy that a majority of the Catalan Parliament plans to hold a self-determination vote on the 9^th of November and they want to do it "reaching an agreement with the Spanish Government and within the legal framework". However, if Rajoy rejects negotiating such an agreement, Mas will use the Catalan legal framework to organise a legal vote. Rajoy emphasised that the consultation vote "is not legal and will not be legal" and therefore "will not take place". However, the Spanish PM did not present any alternatives to modify the current status quo. Besides, Mas presented Rajoy with a document with 23 issues not related to self-determination, such as Catalonia's under-budgeted public services, pending infrastructure works, and the Education Reform.

The historical leader of conservative Catalan nationalism, Jordi Pujol, who chaired the Catalan Government between 1980 and 2003, has been forced to give up all his honorary titles, his pension and his office as former President due to the fiscal fraud to which he confessed on Friday. Furthermore, all the opposition parties demanded that Pujol provide further explanations to the Catalan Parliament. The veteran politician explained that he had kept a fortune in an Andorran bank since 1980, which was not reported to the tax authorities during almost 35 years. The confession arrived after two years of rumours and news regarding his family's fortune and after several of his sons faced judicial investigations for alleged fiscal offenses. The news shocked Catalonia's society since Pujol was a widely respected figure, regardless of individual ideology, and played a crucial role in Spanish and Catalan politics.

The Basque domestic appliance company Fagor Electrodomésticos, which declared bankruptcy in November 2013, has been bought by the Catalan company Cata. On Tuesday the Mercantile Court Number 1 in San Sebastian awarded Fagor's assets to the Catalan domestic appliance company for the price of €42.5 million, €14.5 million more than was offered by the Algerian company, Cevital. Cata offer covered all of the bankrupt divisions of the Basque cooperative and pledged to create 705 direct jobs, as well as ensuring the continuity of the brand names Fagor, Edesa, Aspes and Splendid. Cata stated that the purchase of Fagor was important because it will create "industrial synergies" between the two companies.

FC Barcelona's Economic Vice President, Javier Faus, has given a press conference on Tuesday to review the 2013/14 finances, revealing that the Catalan club has made its second highest profit ever of €41 million a figure previously only topped by the 49 million euros in the 2011/12 season. Furthermore, Barça posted a record income of €530 million. Faus also explained that in the four seasons since 2010/11, when the new Board came into power, the club has an accumulated profit of €113 million. In addition, The 2013/14 season also witnessed a reduction in the net debt by 44 million euros, meaning that since the new Board took over, this figure has decreased by 143 million, and as of June 30 of this year now stands at 287 million euros, while four years ago it was 431 million.

International tourists spent €5.986 billion in Catalonia during the first six months of the year. This represents a 3.9% increase on the same period of 2013. Furthermore, it is also 22.7% of the total foreign tourist expenditure in Spain for this period. Catalonia is the second Autonomous Community where foreign visitors spent more money during the first half of 2014. The Canaries came first with an expenditure of €6.069 billion.  However, both the tourist expenditure in Catalonia per stay and per day in the first half of 2014 fell in comparison with the same period in 2013. Foreign tourists spent €840 per stay (2.6% less than in 2013) and €129 per day (-1.4%). Catalonia is also the area where international tourists spent more money during June, reaching €1.551 billion. This represents 0.2% less than in June 2013, but 24.9% of the total foreign tourist expenditure in Spain that month.

Catalan politics and society are shocked after Jordi Pujol, President of the Catalan Government between 1980 and 2003, confessed on Friday evening that his family had €4 million in Andorra for 35 years which had never been declared to the tax authorities. Madrid-based media and politicians have immediately linked Pujol's scandal to Catalonia's self-determination with the aim to delegitimise the process since the retired politician had been the historical leader of the conservative Catalan nationalists. Parties supporting self-determination have distanced themselves from Pujol, including CDC, the Liberal party he founded in 1974 during Franco's dictatorship that now runs the Catalan Government. It is expected that Jordi Pujol (84) will resign as CDC's Founding President in the next few hours. His confession comes after his family and particularly two of his sons have been targeted by the media and judicial investigations for corruption since 2012.

From Thursday to Sunday the 19^th edition of Tortosa's Renaissance Festival attracted more than 200,000 visitors from all over Europe, who filled the city located in the Ebro Delta area in southern Catalonia. The Mayor of Tortosa, Ferran Bel, emphasised the consolidation of the festival  and the high participation numbers with many international visitors, including foreign tourists and participating companies, such as theatre groups, music bands and food traders. Bel revealed that development work  would soon take place in the old town of Tortosa and further changes would be introduced to improve next year's festival.The Mayor said that the festival had attracted considerable attention not only in southern Europe, but across the entire continent.