Search: null

The Catalan Government will receive €1.7 billion less from the Spanish Liquidity Fund (FLA) in 2013 than had been previously foreseen. The news was announced by the Spanish Government in mid-October, with only 10 weeks left before the end of the year. Madrid has justified the decision by linking the FLA to the plan to lend money to public bodies in order to enable them to pay suppliers. The money to pay suppliers will now be deducted from the FLA, changing the previous conditions. As a consequence, the Catalan Government will not be able to fund the 1.58% deficit it had allowed, since the FLA is its only access to liquidity. Now, Catalonia will only have money for the previously-foreseen 0.7% deficit. The Catalan Executive feels “tricked” as “it is not understandable that the Spanish Government agrees to a greater deficit and later cannot fund this deficit”.

Barça are away to Pamplona to play with Osasuna on Saturday (8 pm CET). On Monday the Catalans go to Milan for the third match of the Champions League group stage, which is to be played on Tuesday. Milan game will come four days earlier than the clásico against Real Madrid, to be played on Saturday 26^th October at FC Barcelona’s Camp Nou.

Banc Sabadell has managed to integrate the entire network of Caixa Penedès’ branches in Catalonia and Aragón, as well as all the technological and operational platforms. With this last integration, Banc Sabadell has €170 billion in assets, around 6 million clients and 12% of Spain’s banking branches. This means that the Catalan bank is now the 4^th largest retail financial entity in Spain, after the Barcelona-based CaixaBank, Santander and BBVA. Banc Sabadell bought Caixa Penedès’ banking business in Catalonia and Aragón to Banco Mare Nostrum (BNM) in May. In only 5 months, Banc Sabadell has added 376 branches to its network, along with 545 million client registers and 900,000 clients. In the last year, the Catalan bank has doubled the size of its network, since it also integrated the Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo (CAM) network.

On Saturday, Spain’s National Day, those opposing Catalan independence and defending Spain’s unity organised a large-scale demonstration in Barcelona. In absolute terms, the demonstration was far from gathering as many people as the Catalan independence demonstration a month ago or that of 2012. However, it was still a massive concentration of people, gathering around 30,000 people according to the local police, 105,000 according to the Spanish Government and 160,000 according to the organisers. The People’s Party and the anti-Catalan nationalism party Ciutadans (C’s) attended the demonstration. The organisers had been received on Thursday by the Presidents of the Catalan Government and Parliament.

The Catalan defender suffered an injury in the back of his left thigh in training. Jordi Alba was working his way back to fitness following a similar injury he picked up a month ago in his other leg. According to FC Barcelona’s doctors, the new injury will keep him out of action for approximately six weeks.

The People’s Party (PP), which runs the Spanish Government, used its absolute majority in the Spanish Parliament to pass a controversial reform of the Education System, which is not supported by the teachers’ unions or the rest of the political parties. Among several aspects, the new law goes against the Catalan school model, based on the linguistic immersion principle, which guarantees that all pupils master both Spanish and Catalan by the end of their studies, ensuring equal opportunities. The reform is the personal project of Spain’s Education Minister, José Ignacio Wert, who used to collaborate in far-right television channels. The Catalan Education Minister, Irene Rigau, confirmed that she will take the new law to the Constitutional Court and stated that the reform will not be implemented in Catalonia in 2014.

The Barcelona-based nationalised Catalunya Banc has reached a first deal with unions on the announced mass lay-off. The deal includes voluntary redundancies instead of early retirements, and the possibility for 401 workers over 50 years old to leave the company. The agreement was reached in the early hours of Wednesday morning, after a long day of talks on Tuesday. Catalunya Banc runs the banking business of the nationalised savings bank CatalunyaCaixa, which will be sold in the coming months after a comprehensive restructuring process. Talks are still ongoing in order to close a definitive deal and the definitive agreement has now to be ratified by the bank’s Board.

In an interview with the Catalan News Agency, the European Commissioner for Regional Policy, the Austrian Johannes Hahn, nuanced previous statements made by other Commissioners and opened the door to debating Catalonia’s EU membership “in a more relaxed way”. Hahn “rejected” the idea that the Commission “is ignoring Catalonia’s independence movement”; “we are watching it carefully”, he said. On the question of automatic expulsion from the EU in the event of becoming independent, the Commissioner emphasised that “of course there is no provision in the Treaty and that’s why legal experts have the opinion that then Catalonia should ask for membership”. However he immediately added that “we should resolve this issue in a more relaxed way”, since “if there is independence, it would not happen from one day to the next”.

At the HIV Vaccine World Congress, which is taking place in Barcelona between the 7^th and 10^th October, Catalan researchers presented a vaccine prototype that has proven to be effective in clinical studies conducted with mice and monkeys. The vaccine stimulates the creation of antibodies and attacks infected cells. The prototype has been created by the Catalan programme to develop a vaccine against HIV, HIVACAT. According to the programme’s Scientific Director, Christian Brander, the vaccine could eventually also be used as a therapeutic treatment.

In addition, CaixaBank declares that “it will take all the opportunities” to grow in the Spanish market. The Catalan CaixaBank, which is Spain’s main retail bank, has sold €1 billion in 3.5 year bonds, after a market demand of €2.8 billion. In fact, the large demand made the issue price drop from 180 to 170 basic points on ‘midswap’, which is the reference index for this sort of corporate bonds. The issue interest was set at 2.5% and the issue cost represents 18.5 basic points over the Spanish Treasury Debt’s price. The new issue by CaixaBank is part of the bank’s financial plan for 2013, which aims to strengthen CaixaBank’s liquidity, set to reach 64.604 billion by 30^th June.

Sensational second half comeback gives Barça their eighth straight Spanish League win, breaking their own record. Alexis (2), Xavi and Neymar turned the result round after Valladolid's opener.Valladolid set a different task for Barça with an early strike and although Martino’s side soon equalised, it wasn’t until the second half that they finished the game off, with an unstoppable Neymar leading the fightback.

A series of earthquakes measuring between 2 and 4.2 on the Richter scale have been affecting the coast of southernmost Catalonia and northernmost Valencia in the last few weeks but particularly since last weekend. All the evidence suggests that the Castor offshore gas reservoir is behind the earthquakes. In 2009, the Spanish Government approved the building of an underground gas reservoir located under the sea bed, some 20 kilometres offshore from the Ebro Delta and Vinarós, using the cavity in the rock from a former oil field. Madrid approved the project without an earthquake risk report, despite a formal petition from the Catalan Government. Now, geologists, the Spanish Industry Ministry and the company admit that the injection of gas into the rock could be triggering the earthquakes. Activities have been stopped and the Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the case.

The founder and CEO of technology company GFT announced that they will create 500 new jobs in Catalonia in the coming years. In an exclusive interview with the CNA, Ulrich Dietz, stated that he has “aggressive plans to increase the staff” in Greater Barcelona and Lleida. GFT  specialises in developing technological solutions for the banking and insurance sectors, with a turnover of €231 million in 2012. With several offices in Germany, the company is based in Stuttgart and is present in Brazil, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, US and UK. A quarter of GFT employees throughout the world are based in Catalonia. Most of them work in Greater Barcelona, which is the company’s “hub” for the European market. Dietz explained that he has plans to develop Lleida’s facilities, which currently employ 40 people, “significantly”.

On the same day, the Court re-affirmed its decision to keep its current Chairman in position despite his anti-Catalan public stance and having been a member of the governing People’s Party (PP) until 2011. On top of this, Catalan and Basque Members of the European Parliament from five different parties formally asked the European Commission to intervene against the politicisation of the Spanish Constitutional Court, stressing that EU democracies should have an independent judiciary. The Constitutional Court is the highest interpreter of Spain’s legislation, has to guarantee the respect of fundamental rights and acts as a referee between the different government levels and political actors. In this capacity, it ruled against the appeal presented by the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) against the law that abolished the requirement to know Catalan for working as a public servant in Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera, despite it being the local language.

At Spanish level, unemployment increased both in monthly and annual terms. Catalonia is the Autonomous Community with the largest annual unemployment drop in absolute terms and the second highest in relative terms. The number of people registered as unemployed in Catalonia at the end of September dropped by 11,546 individuals compared to figures from a year ago, representing a 1.83% annual decrease. However, in monthly terms, registered unemployment increased by 1.51%, with 9,243 more jobseekers. September is a month with a traditional unemployment increase due to the end of summer season contracts. Last September’s unemployment increase was the lowest since 2008.