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For the first time ever, over 7.5 million tourists stayed in one of Barcelona’s hotels in 2013. More specifically, the Catalan capital welcomed 7.571,766 visitors in its hotel rooms last year, meaning a 1.77% increase on 2012, when Barcelona’s hotels accounted for 7.440,113 guests. 80% of visitors are foreigners, mainly from France, the UK and the US. Besides, this increase in the number of hotel guests  is not the only record achieved last year. Indeed, the number of overnight stays has also reached an unprecedented number, with almost 16.5 million overnight stays registered in 2013, a 3.4% growth on 2012 figures.   

The Government of Extremadura, a region bordering Portugal, presented a study comparing its contributions to the rest of Spain with those of the other Autonomous Communities, particularly focusing on Catalonia. The main thrust of the report was that Catalonia receives the highest amount of money from the Spanish Government, which goes against absolutely all the previous studies that have established that Catalan taxes fund services, investments and infrastructure in the rest of Spain. The Catalan Finance Minister, Andreu Mas-Colell, characterised “the political document” presented by Extremadura’s Government as a “complete nonsense”. Mas-Colell, who was Professor of Economics at Berkley and Harvard from 1972 to 1995, said that the report lacked rigour and was not a technical work. The next day Extremadura’s President, José Antonio Monago, stated that Catalonia is “a privileged territory” and questioned whether it could repay its debt.

The Catalan club’s President Josep Maria Bartomeu launches the information campaign for the New Espai Barça with an exhibition at the Camp Nou. The campaign will run through to April 3, when club members will be called to vote on the reform. "This is the starting point of the referendum process. This proposal is centred on a comprehensive facelift of the Stadium, and a new Palau” explained FC Barcelona’s President. “The project is financeable. We will not be saddling a generation of Barça members with big debt payments” said the club’s Financial Vice President, Javier Faus.

The Catalan Government announced it will take to the Constitutional Court four bills drafted by the Spanish Executive because they neglect Catalonia’s self-government capacities and exclusive powers. The 4 affected bills are the Education Reform, the Market Unity Law, the Local Governments Law and the Environment Evaluation Law. The Spokesperson for the Catalan Government and Minister for the Presidency, Francesc Homs, said that those reforms go against the Constitution and aim to reform it “through the back door”. “It is a reform without the needed transparency, without holding an open debate”, he said. “They are stripping away our political capacity to decide”, Homs emphasised. The Spanish Government justified the recentralisation of powers as a way to improve efficiency in times of economic crisis and austerity. However, several experts have already warned that it is not proven that efficiency will improve if powers are centralised.

The Spanish Ministry of Education has released the decree proposal stating that the Catalan Government has the obligation to provide alternatives to families who request their children to be taught in Spanish in public schools, where Catalan is the first language of instruction and Spanish is mostly taught as a subject. Furthermore, Catalonia and all other Autonomous Communities with two official languages will have “to fully assume” the costs of these children’s education in privately-owned schools using Spanish as the language of instruction if the families do not find the appropriate public alternative. The money will be deducted from the Autonomous Communities’ funding scheme if they do not cooperate. However, the decree does not work the other way round in regions such as Valencia, where families are having problems to school their children in Catalan (co-official there).

The 33 judges who signed the manifesto in favour of Catalonia’s right to self-determination, stating that it “is a nation without discussion”, and therefore has “full sovereignty to decide on its own future”, have filed a complaint after photos of their personal profiles were published in a Madrid-based newspaper on Monday. The complaint was filed for revealing personal information, arguing that such pictures can only have been accessed from computers used by the Spanish Police or the Spanish Ministry of Home Affairs. Therefore, the judges have asked to open an investigation to find out who divulged such confidential information.

The Catalan Minister for Territory and Sustainability, Santi Vila, who is also in charge of housing policies, presented on Tuesday the draft of a new tax bill on empty flats and houses owned by financial institutions in Catalonia. During a press conference, Vila explained that such a tax is looking to be an “incentive” for banks to make available their 15,000 flats spread across 70 municipalities with “proven demand” for housing, mainly around Barcelona, Tarragona, Lleida and Girona, and which have been empty for more than 2 years without a justified cause. The amount of the tax will be based on the total number of square meters owned by the banks and will include significant accumulative bonuses if the institutions decide to rent their properties, notably for social housing. The Catalan Government estimates that banks own around 40,000 empty flats, including in areas with housing demand.

The Catalan Executive announced it will take the Spanish Government’s Hydrologic Plan for the Ebro River (Plan Hidrológico del Ebro) to the European Commission, as it will damage the river’s delta, which is a unique environment and one of UNESCO’s Biosphere Reserves. The European Commission replied that it will need “weeks or even months” to analyse the plan, which only guarantees that around 30% of the river’s volume of flow will reach the delta. According to scientific studies, such a volume of water is absolutely insufficient to preserve the Delta, which is a reserve for wildlife as well as a tourist and agricultural centre. The project foresees allocating almost 11,000 cubic hectometres of water per year upstream to irrigate 1.41 million hectares of fields, a third of them newly-created. Brussels is still waiting for Madrid’s documentation but the Commission warned that it will look at the plan “from all the possible angles”.

Barcelona-based SEAT, which is part of the Volkswagen Group, has chosen the Geneva Motor Show to introduce its new vehicle in the Leon range, the cars whose sales increased the most in 2013, with a total of 102,000 units sold. This latest creation is the new Leon Cupra, by far the most powerful and the fastest vehicle manufactured by the Catalan company, whose main factory is located in Martorell (Greater Barcelona). With its 280 horsepower, this sports model will hit the market in both 5-door and 3-door versions. Coinciding with the opening of the event this Tuesday, SEAT also presented the Mango version of its Mii city car, a special edition resulting from the collaboration between designers at the SEAT Martorell plant and the Catalan fashion multinational which includes, amongst other novelties, exclusive paintings in beige and black.

In February, 629,586 people were enrolled on the unemployment lists in Catalonia, representing a decrease of 4,285 unemployed people on the same month last year, according to figures released on Tuesday by the Spanish Employment and Social Security Ministry. It is also the sharpest decline for a month of February since 2004, when 5,138 fewer jobseekers were registered. With this latest drop in the unemployment figures, Catalonia has achieved eight consecutive months of registered unemployment reduction in annual terms. In the whole of Spain, unemployment stood at 4,812,486 people, down by 1,949 people in February. It is the first decrease for the month of February since the beginning of the crisis in 2007.

The well-known former member of the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) Ernest Maragall, who quit the organisation in October 2012 because of its lack of commitment to Catalonia’s self-determination, joins the candidate list of the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC) for the next European Parliament Elections to run in second place. Ernest Maragall has been one of the most prominent members of the PSC, occupying key positions in Barcelona Town Hall and the Catalan Government over three decades. He formed a political tandem with his brother Pasqual Maragall, who was President of Catalonia between 2003 and 2006 and led the urban transformation of Barcelona as the city Mayor between 1982 and 1997. In fact, Catalan politics during the last 3 decades cannot be understood without the Maragall brothers, who were also founding members of the PSC back in 1977.

The FC Barcelona captain made the announcement to the media on Tuesday afternoon, after having reached an agreement with the Catalan club. The player’s contract will be rescinded at the end of June and leave it without effect for the two years that were left on it. After two serious operations, the Catalan centre-back – who in April will be 36 years old – “finds it very hard to get back to the level” needed to play for Barça, “much more” than he thought and “the surgeons told” him. However, Puyol emphasised that there are still three months of the season left and that he “will not give up” and “will keep fighting to the end”. The player explained he had not made any future plans yet. He also announced he will hold a press conference to “say farewell to all the people that have accompanied him”. Carles Puyol has been a Barça player for 14 years, playing 593 games and scoring 18 goals.

From this Monday onwards, visiting the fortress at the top of Barcelona’s Montjuïc hill will cost €5. Special discounts will be available as well as free admissions on special days, like the other museums in the city. Within Montjuïc Castle, history-related exhibitions will be held. Visitors can currently discover the exhibition ‘Postwar Barcelona’, organised by the City Council’s Archives with the collaboration of the Carles Pi i Sunyer Foundation. The exhibition starts with Franco’s troops entering the city on the 26^th of January 1939 and finishes with the end of term of Fascist Mayor Miquel Mateu i Pla in 1945. In fact, it is a time travel back to post Civil War Barcelona, displaying more than 250 documents, including illustrations and photos, as well as historical texts and articles.

On Monday, Barcelona launched its term as first European Volunteering Capital, which will feature more than 30 events spread throughout the year, combining activities created especially for the occasion and traditional celebrations. Among the most noteworthy are the promotion of volunteering in schools and the creation of a mobile app connecting volunteers and organisations in need. The Catalan Minister for Social Welfare and Family, Neus Munté, and the Deputy Mayor of Barcelona, Joaquim Forn, stressed that volunteering has always been one of the defining features of the city. Furthermore, Munté announced that the Catalan Government had already completed the drafts for a future volunteering law and action plan.

On Sunday evening, almost 6 months after having been kidnapped in Syria, Marc Marginedas, El Periódico de Catalunya’s war correspondent, arrived at Barcelona El Prat Airport in a plane of the Spanish Air Force. The journalist was “in good health”, according to the Spanish Government. Marginedas was able to cross the border between Syria and Turkey, where he boarded the plane after having been freed in the middle of the night on Saturday. He was welcomed back by his family, the Director of El Periódico, Enric Hernández, the Spanish Deputy Prime Minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, and the Spanish Executive’s Delegate in Catalonia, María de los Llanos de Luna. Catalan Ricard Garcia Vilanova and Andalusian Javier Espinosa are still in captivity in Syria; there are around 30 international reporters and 100 local journalists still held prisoner in the Arab country.