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After 29 days, the Brazilian player has finally managed to put his ankle injury behind him. After getting injured against Getafe, Neymar has missed eight official matches. The Brazilian superstar has been training with the squad since Monday, but only today was it finally confirmed that he would be fit to play, if picked, against Rayo Vallecano at the Camp Nou on Saturday evening. Neymar has played 25 games this season, scoring 11 goals. During his time away from duty, Neymar Jr has celebrated his first birthday as a Barça player, visited the club museum and appeared on the cover of Japan’s ‘Zone’ magazine.

In 2013, the consolidated net profit of VidaCaixa, the insurance branch of Spain’s largest bank CaixaBank, amounted to €420.1 million. The figure represents a 46.2% decrease on the previous year, when it had reached €789.5 million. This decrease is due to the effects of the reinsurance transaction on the company’s ‘vida-risc’ life insurance, which occurred in the last quarter of 2012, bringing in an extra income of €600 million back then. On the other hand, the net recurring profit for 2013 totalled €328.3 million, 3.1% less than the previous year. VidaCaixa has reached 3.6 million customers and exceeded €50 billion of assets under management, both figures amounting to a 14.1% increase on the previous year.

33 Catalan judges have signed a manifesto supporting Catalonia’s right to self-determination. The judges emphasise that such a right fits into the current constitutional framework and is in line with international law. Some of the signatories work in provincial High Courts and have been members of the body governing judicial power in Spain (CGPJ). It is the first time that Spanish State civil servants have made such a clear statement supporting the right of the Catalan people to decide freely on their collective future and their relation to Spain. Judicial power in Spain is totally centralised and has a deep centralist tradition. According to these law experts, “Catalonia is a nation”, “without discussion”, and therefore has “full sovereignty to decide on its own future”.

The Catalan Executive, chaired by Artur Mas, has published a 50-page memorandum in reply to the report issued by the Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, in late December against Catalan independence. Margallo’s document claimed that independence was “immoral” and “not a democratic option”. The 200-page report was distributed to all Spain’s embassies as a list of arguments to be used to lobby against Catalan independence at international level. The memo was written in a condescending tone and included many judgemental opinions, half-truths, partial quotes and even lies. One of them was that Catalonia recovered its self-government institutions thanks to the Constitution, which is false. The Catalan Government has replied with its own memo and has asked the Spanish Foreign Affairs Ministry to distribute it to all the embassies as well.

The President of Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, Miquel Valls, stated on Thursday that the independence process was not affecting Catalonia’s economic recovery. During a press conference, Valls emphasised that such a statement was based on concrete “facts”. He stressed that Catalonia had tripled the amount of incoming foreign investment compared to the Spanish average, and that the Catalan economy had also registered better figures in enterprise creation and business confidence, employment and other indicators showing an economic recovery According to the report on conjecture and economic perspectives, the Catalan GDP grew by 0.7% during the fourth quarter of 2013, whereas the Spanish GDP dropped by 0.1%. Valls also recalled that the consultation vote on the political future of Catalonia would involve “citizens and not businesses”, thus responding to the employers who recently voiced their opposition to Catalonia’s independence.

The German multinational BASF distanced themselves from the manifesto issued on Tuesday by 60 German businesspeople, including BASF CEO in Spain, against Catalan independence. BASF stated that they “will is to continue [their] activities in Catalonia”, as “proven” by their “more than €30 million investment” made in 2013. The manifesto against independence stated it would have “dreadful consequences” on the Catalan economy. BASF replied they “did not intend to influence or intervene in political debates”, adding that they “respect the laws of the countries in which [they] operate”. The German company “deeply” lamented, along with its CEO Erwin Rauhe, that the company’s name had been used in the presentation of the manifesto against independence, called ‘Declaration of Barcelona’.

The Catalan Ministry of Home Affairs has constituted an Ethics Committee for the Catalan Police Force, called Mossos d’Esquadra. It will be chaired by Francesc Torralba, Director of Applied Ethics at Barcelona’s Ramon Llull University. The Ethics Committee was firstly created by the former Left-Wing Cabinet, when the Home Affairs Ministry was run by a Green Socialist (ICV-EUiA). However, it was suppressed in 2011 by his successor from the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU). Now, following recent scandals, such as the death of an arrestee, it has been restored. The Ethics Committee is made of ten members who have a non-renewable term of four years: five representatives of the police and home security are joined by five independent university professors in the field of law, ethics and sociology. Their first assignment will be drafting the Catalan Police’s new Code of Ethics.

Housing sales in Catalonia have reached 45,064 units in 2013, representing a 4.8% increase on the previous year, according to data published on Wednesday by the Spanish Statistics Institute (INE). Such figures are the highest since 2010, when 55,857 transactions were registered. Besides, in monthly terms, in December 2013, there were 3,014home sales in Catalonia, amounting to a 2.6% increase on the same month last year. At Spanish level, residential property transactions dropped to 311,414 in 2013, meaning a 2.2% decrease. The December figures reveal a similar trend, with the number of sales falling to 22,723 units in the entire country, a 3.6% decrease compared to the same month last year.

A goal from Messi secures passage to the final of the Copa del Rey. Barça will face off against Real Madrid on April 19. The team managed by Gerardo Martino preserved their 2-0 advantage and they qualified without too much difficulty. When push comes to shove, this team responds: they are in the final after having won seven of their eight Cup matches this season and with Leo Messi, who scored the go-ahead goal in San Sebastián, as the highest goal scorer of the competition. In the final minutes of the match Griezmann netted the equaliser, but it was too little to late to trouble a Barça side that had completed one of the best first halves so far this season.

The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, was responding to the recent concerns raised by the President of Spain’s main employers’ association CEOE and by a group of 60 German businesspeople. Mas praised the “strength” of Catalonia’s economy, being “the most dynamic in southern Europe”. He stressed that Catalonia is leading the attraction of foreign investment in the whole of southern Europe. Furthermore, in the first 6 weeks of the current year, German companies have already announced €131 million of direct investment in Catalonia. Spanish nationalist parties have stated that the self-determination claims create instability and companies do not like this. Mas replied that Catalonia “has already tried out absolutely everything [to better fit within Spain] and the answer has always been the same: ‘no, no and no, and ten thousand times no’”.

Chinese Group Platinum Estates has purchased the former headquarters of Telefonica in Barcelona, located in the Eixample neighbourhood, for €56.4 million, according to a statement by Renta Corporación, which managed the transaction. Furthermore, investors will allocate €45 additional million to transform the building, once belonging to the first telecommunications company in Spain, into a block of flats. The building, located on the Roma Avenue, was the propriety of Cerep Investment, a company controlled by private equity Group Carlyle, until it went bankrupt in the spring of last year. The buyer is a family group based in Hong Kong, which is part of Platinum Estates and is led by textile tycoon Harry Mohinani, of Hindu origin.

The project ‘Persecuted and Saved’ will tell the story of how 80,000 WW2 refugees escaped persecution and death through the Pyrenees mountains into Catalonia. The Israel Ambassador in Spain, Alon Bar, and the CEO of EL-AL - the main Israeli airline, Walter Wasercier, have already taken a key interest in the project, aiming to promote the history of the 20,000 Jews that used the mountains to escape from the Holocaust and obtain their freedom. The project is based in the Province of Lleida, in western Catalonia, around various historical sites, including refugee camps and mountain pathways used by fleeing refugees.

Contemporary Catalan literature is being well received amongst British critics. The BBC recently interviewed Catalan writer Marc Pastor on the hit show ‘Meet the Author’ to introduce the English translation of his novel ‘La Mala Dona’ (known as ‘Barcelona Shadows’ for UK readers), which was published by Pushkin Press in January 2^nd. Critics have also praised ‘Maletes perdudes’ (‘Lost Luggage’), a novel by Catalan writer Jordi Puntí, who took part in the British Library’s European Literature Night last May. Another English publishing house has bought the rights of ‘Jo confesso’ (‘I confess’), a Catalan best-seller by author Jaume Cabré, and plans to publish it on 2015.

Around 60 German businesspeople working in Catalonia have issued a manifesto against independence from Spain. They warn against “the dreadful consequences” that independence would bring for the Catalan economy. The manifesto signers, who work in companies that invested millions in Catalonia and in the rest of Spain, state that independence would represent the automatic expulsion from the European Union. They also add that “it is doubtful” it could still use the Euro. Furthermore, they “warn about the dangers of a nationalist fervour, which in the last century, has brought immeasurable suffering to Europe and which will neither bring anything good to Catalonia”. Besides, on the same day, the President of Spain’s main employer association, Juan Rosell, stated that independence would be “disastrous” for human relations. The Catalan Government respects their opinion but has refused to comment on the manifesto.

The Catalan Government has approved 3 new environmental taxes on the air pollution emissions of commercial flights, industrial gas and particle emission, and the nuclear production of electric energy. €50 million are expected to be raised per year once the law will be enforced, which is scheduled for mid-year. The Spokesperson for the Catalan Government, Francesc Homs, has admitted that flights at Barcelona’s El Prat Airport would likely be affected. However, he ensured that none of these 3 new taxes would have a negative impact on the consumers. The law specifies that the tax cannot affect pricing, neither for plane tickets nor for electricity, pointed out Homs. He then put in contrast the €98 million fees an airline can have to pay to the Spanish Airport Authority (AENA) with the €1 million in taxes that may be levied by the Catalan Government.