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FC Barcelona and Real Sociedad have reached an agreement for the transfer of goalkeeper Claudio Bravo. The player will sign a contract with FC Barcelona for the next four seasons. The new keeper came through the Colo-Colo youth system, making his first team debut in the First Division, at 19 years old, in 2002. He played for the Chilean team until 2006, when he signed for the Basque outfit. In San Sebastian he has become a natural leader after eight seasons: he is the second non-national with most matches played, and became the third goalkeeper in the history of the club playing most matches in a Real Sociedad shirt.

The Spanish Government wants the Catalan Government to pay for the private tuition of students who request to be taught in Spanish but find no offer in the public system. The 6,057 figure is, according to the Spanish Minister of Education, Ignacio Wert, a “compensation” similar to the cost of having a pupil in the public education system. The Catalan Minister of Education, Irene Rigau, said the figure is “a political decision” and rejected the move, which she thinks is “an offensive to destroy” the Catalan model of education. Recently, the State Council, the Spanish Government’s main advisory body, asked the Ministry of Education to “reconsider entirely” its decision.

Six Catalan performing arts companies have introduced their projects at the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival (GDIF) 2014 Showcase and a further three have taken part in the official program of the festival, thanks to the collaboration of the Culture Department and FiraTàrrega with GDIF. The 2014 edition of the renowned street arts festival will run from 20-28 June, showcasing some of the most interesting street theatre on the continent. Its director, Bradley Hemmings, told CNA that FiraTàrrega has "influenced the structure and development" of the show, one of the largest in the UK, and he was looking forward to receiving fresh Catalan projects.

In the first five months of 2014, the number of foreign visitors increased by 8% to almost 5.5 million people. Catalonia is the autonomous community in Spain that attracts the most tourists, one in four of all foreign visitors to Spain. This is according to the latest figures from the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism. The strongest increases in visitors came from the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Asia, although the UK, Germany and France are still the three countries that sent more tourists to Catalonia.

The Catalan President argued in an interview that Catalonia will need to show “strength” in the wake of the referendum, scheduled for the 9^th of November. A coalition government with the two main parties in Parliament, the Centre-Right pro-Catalan State (CiU) and the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC), has been on the cards for a long time. The leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, said previously that he is “absolutely ready” to form a coalition to “culminate the process” towards independence but that this would mean having an agreement on “all” issues, including economical ones.

Just 36.3% of Catalans have Catalan as their main language, according to a survey presented on Friday by the Catalan Ministry of Culture and the Catalan Institute of Statistics (Idescat). The survey examining language use in the population of 2013 found that 31% of the Catalan population had Catalan as their mother tongue and a slightly higher percentage usually converse in Catalan as their main language: 36.3%. Nonetheless, 55.1% of those surveyed reported having Spanish as their mother tongue, with 50.7% using Spanish as their main language. In 2003, 46% reported having Catalan as their main language, but this fell to 35.6% by 2008. Additionally, the report found that 94.3% of Catalans surveyed in 2013 could understand Catalan.

Catalan parties welcomed the new King in a cold manner, and some were even directly absent from the coronation and participated instead in events in favour of a republican regime. However, after a few days of uncertainty, the President of the Catalan Government and leader of the Centre-Right pro-Catalan State CiU, Artur Mas, attended the ceremony in Madrid. Despite the fact that CiU did not give its explicit support to the King's succession, the CiU representatives were all present at the ceremony, although without showing enthusiasm. In addition, Mas insisted that he continues with his "wait and see" attitude, as the King's speech "did not offer anything new". Meanwhile, representatives from the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC) did not attend the ceremonies, neither did representatives from the Catalan Green Socialist Coalition (ICV-EUiA), who participated in a small pro-republic demonstration in Barcelona at the exact same time the new King was swearing the Constitution.

Jordi Ausàs, who was Catalan Minister for Governance and Administration between March 2008 and December 2010, was condemned to 4 years in jail and to pay a €195,000 fine for tobacco trafficking and not paying the corresponding taxes. The Lleida Province's High Court stated on Thursday afternoon that Ausàs had participated in an organised criminal band that was smuggling tobacco through the border between Andorra and Spain since the summer of 2010, when he was in office. Back in 2012, when Ausàs was formally accused, the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC) temporarily suspended his party membership until the situation was made clear. The ERC have not issued any official statement at the time of writing this article and Ausàs’ lawyers have not confirmed whether he will appeal the Court's decision.

The new King of Spain, Felipe VI, highlighted the unity of the country but also its diversity in his first speech as monarch. In a ceremony before the Spanish Parliament and Senate on Thursday morning, Felipe VI gave a speech portraying the guidelines of his reign, just after swearing loyalty to the Constitution, including the Autonomous Communities, as he stressed. He defined himself as "a Constitutional King", who is "the symbol" of "the unity and permanence of Spain". However, he also highlighted that "unity does not mean uniformity" and he pointed out that the Constitution asks "to respect and protect" the different languages in Spain, which are "a shared heritage" and "bridges for dialogue". Despite praising "diversity", Felipe VI delivered his speech entirely in Spanish, despite a small final greeting in Catalan, Basque and Galician. In addition, he defined Spain as "a great nation" to be "proud of", without mentioning Spain's pluri-national status.

An agreement between the Centre-Right pro-Catalan State Coalition (CiU) – which runs Barcelona's municipal government in minority – and the People's Party (PP) will allow shops located in tourist areas of the Catalan capital to be open on Sundays during the summer season, from 10am to 6pm. Shops in Catalonia are normally closed on Sundays, with few exceptions for the Christmas or sales seasons. However, shops in small tourist towns are allowed greater flexibility during holidays and can open on Sundays. The case of Barcelona is quite unusual, since it is the largest tourist destination in Catalonia but it is also a big city with a dense network of small and neighbourhood shops. These small shops could be damaged if they have to open longer hours (with the increase of financial and personal costs associated) in order to compete with multinationals.

In the five years since it opened, the T1 Terminal of Barcelona El Prat Airport has received over 111 million people, overseen approximately 1.3 million take-off and landing operations and processed 70 million items of luggage. The new airport terminal became operational on 17 June 2009 and marked its fifth anniversary on Tuesday. The new terminal has processed twice as many passengers in this period than the older T2 terminal. In addition, Barcelona El Prat Airport was on Tuesday night announced as the best airport in Europe, at the ACI (Airport Council International) Europe Awards 2014 held in Frankfurt. It was the second time the airport has received this accolade.

Eduardo Madina, who is the main candidate to become the new Secretary General of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), nuanced his previous statement in which he supported a "legal" self-determination vote in Catalonia. Madina stated on Monday he would back a "citizen participation mechanism", "agreed" with the Spanish authorities and within the broader framework of a Constitutional Reform, when he was asked about Catalonia's self-determination referendum. However, after all media interpreted he was backing an agreed self-determination process, to which the PSOE opposes, Madina corrected his words and said they were "a mistake". "In order to avoid misinterpretations: the legal consultation votes that I accept are those foreseen in the Constitution for the entirety of Spain", he added on Tuesday.

Despite the fact that the International Liberal-Democrats explicitly recognised Catalonia's right to self-determination in their last congress in April, their group within the European Parliament (ALDE) has finally accepted 6 MEPs from the Spanish nationalist and populist parties Unión Progreso y Democracia (UPyD) and Ciutadans (C's), who totally oppose this principle. Desperately looking for seats in order to continue being the 3^rd largest political group within the Euro-Chamber, the ALDE leadership proposed to accept the membership request from UPyD and C's, who would bring 4 and 2 MEPs respectively, despite the strong protests from the Catalan Liberal party CDC (which is part of the governing Convergencia i Unió coalition, CiU) and the Basque National Party (PNV). The members of the ALDE finally voted to accept UPyD and C's MEPs, but they also approved the creation of a sub-group defending Catalonia's self-determination.

A plasma fractionation plant installed in Clayton, North Carolina by the company Grífols was unveiled on Tuesday by the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, along with the President and CEO of the pharmaceutical, Víctor Grífols, and the State Governor, Pat McCrory. The new plant is 14,400 square metres big, will create over 200 jobs and represents an investment of 260 million euros. Expected to be operational by 2015, it will the largest and one of the most advanced plasma fractionation plants in the world. Grífols already has 2,300 employees in the state of North Carolina and it is among the world's top pharmaceuticals within the blood-derivates market. A few weeks ago, Víctor Grífols gave his support to the Catalan President and the self-determination process, which he confirmed on Tuesday.

The Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) stated it cancelled a debate on the EU Membership of an independent Catalonia because they could not find a speaker arguing that Catalonia would be excluded from the EU. However, the Catalan Government and the Catalan Public Diplomacy Council (Diplocat) suspect the Spanish Government pressured the CEPS to cancel the debate, as it already tried to do with previous events. The Spanish Executive denied the accusations, which are also rejected by the CEPS. The event was organised weeks ago and was supposed to take place on Tuesday at 9.30am at the CEPS facilities, which is the most prestigious think tank in EU Affairs. It was "postponed" on Monday evening, just a few hours before it was due to start. A prestigious Constitutional expert, who advises the Catalan Government, Carles Viver i Pi-Sunyer, was supposed to present a report arguing that Catalonia would remain within the EU.