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The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, and the King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, met on Thursday for the first time since Mas was re-elected president and the Catalan Parliament approved a Declaration of Sovereignty of the People of Catalonia. The meeting lasted 45 minutes and none of the participants officially commented afterwards. However, Mas, once in Barcelona, referred to it during a literary prize ceremony. The Catalan President underlined that “we will always have to go and explain ourselves” regarding Catalonia’s self-determination process. According to him, this proves Catalonia’s “willingness to always talk”. Besides, Mas also explained to the monarch that the current deficit targets imposed on the Autonomous Communities are not allowing them to guarantee the Welfare State.

Andreu Mas-Colell, the Catalan Finance Minister, has sent a letter to the European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Olli Rehn, to denounce the fact that the Spanish Government is proportionally imposing much stricter deficit target on the Autonomous Communities than that of the Spanish Executive, obliging them to implement a much larger and faster adjustment. In 2013, the Spanish Government allowed itself a 3.8% deficit target and imposed an objective of 0.7% on the Autonomous Communities. In Spain regional governments manage 36% of the total public spending, including the main public services such as healthcare, education and social affairs. The Catalan Government manages an even larger share, as it has more devolved powers.

Barça managed a valuable draw at Real Madrid in Wednesday’s Spanish Cup semi final, but will feel short-changed after displaying superior football and creating so many wasted chances. Cesc made it 1-0 in the 50th minute, but without doing much to warrant it, Real Madrid snatched a draw with ten minutes to go.

Through its FET-Flagship programme, the European Commission is allocating €1 billion to each of the two main research projects in Europe. The first one is a project to explore the properties of graphene, a new material deriving from graphite that might revolutionise industry as silicon did a few decades ago. The second one will simulate a human brain in order to understand how it exactly works. The Catalan Institute of Nanotechnology is one of the nine leading institutes coordinating the graphene project, in which 623 research groups from 32 different countries will participate. Furthermore, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center will take care of the calculations at a molecular level in the Human Brain Project.

On Monday the Spanish Minister for the Economy, Luís de Guindos, stated that Spain might internally redistribute its total deficit target among the different government levels in order to give more breathing space to the Autonomous Communities, which have been taking on a large part of the budget adjustment. However, the following day, the Spanish Finance Minister, Cristóbal Montoro, ruled out this possibility if Brussels does not give greater flexibility to Spain and increase its total deficit target for 2013. On Wednesday, after the contradictory messages, the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, confirmed Montoro’s approach. In 2013, Spain has been given a total deficit target of 4.5%: 3.8% is for the Spanish Government (responsible for 50% of public spending) and 0.7% is for the Autonomous Communities (responsible for almost 40%).

A new soup kitchen opened a week ago in the Eixample district, in downtown Barcelona, with a capacity for a hundred places. Barcelona City Council has increased the funding intended for social dining facilities in its 2012 budget by 69%. Expanding the number of places and soup kitchens is “a key priority” of the city to guarantee access to food for everyone, according to Maite Fandos, Deputy Mayor for Social Affairs. The capital of Catalonia now has 17 soup kitchens and can attend 1,540 users each day. In 2012, the City Council’s soup kitchens served a total of 380,737 meals to 10,423 users.

Jordi Roura can call on his most important players for the match against Real Madrid. Los Blancos are without Casillas, Pepe (injured), Ramos, Coentrao and Di María (suspended). However, the Blaugrana know that Real Madrid, despite coming into the match with important absences, have always been a very dangerous side. Roura is aware that overconfidence could lead to a disastrous result at the Bernabéu. Barça coaching staff and the players have rubbished being called favourites for this Wednesday match, despite the 15-point lead FC Barcelona have in the Spanish League.

The Catalan Government criticised the Spanish Executive’s obstacles to Catalonia’s own external relations action, as “in a globalised world” this “is not a caprice”, but essential to be recognised at an international level and to attract foreign investment. The Catalan Minister for the Presidency, in charge of External Relations, Francesc Homs, criticised the Spanish Government’s “old-fashioned” way of understanding diplomacy and gave the example of spending in 2012 “€330,000 on cutlery and table cloths”. Homs emphasised the main commercial focus of Catalonia’s external offices and their “modesty”. The Catalan Government has a total of 5 political representation offices – including for the European Union – and 34 commercial offices.

After having ruled out Barcelona because unions refused to sign Nissan’s final offer of modifying working conditions and reducing salaries in order to increase competitiveness, the unions made an about-turn. With the Catalan Government’s mediation, the main union signed Nissan’s final offer and the two others (CCOO and UGT) presented their own cost reduction plan, accepting almost all of the company’s requirements, including the dual salary scale. After a day-long negotiation between the Catalan Business Ministry and the unions, CCOO and UGT agreed to sign Nissan’s agreement if the company guaranteed the jobs of the existing workers. Nissan has accepted and now the European branch will put its Barcelona plant forward to the Japanese headquarters, which will soon allocate the new car production.

The Contemporary Art Museum of Barcelona (MACBA) increased its number of visitors by 2.8% in 2012 with respect to the previous year. In 2011 the museum received the visit of 690,865 people, while in 2012 this figure grew to 710,435 visitors. The most visited exhibition has been ‘Oferta pública/Public Tender’ by Rita McBride with a total of 188,028 spectators.

The Barcelona-based company transported 14.8 million passengers in 2012, a new record for the airline. Vueling, created in 2004, transported 20% more passengers compared to 2011. The 14,794,857 customers meant a 77.7% occupancy rate over 108,433 flights, a 17.6% increase on the previous year, which led to the company closing with a profit for the fourth year in a row. Vueling is today the second biggest airline in Spain after Iberia and the third one in the number of customers, after Ryanair and Iberia.

A Scottish multinational has asked permission from the Spanish Ministry of Industry in order to look for hydrocarbons on the Catalan coast, in front of the Costa Brava and Maresme areas. This request has been made shortly after another company, Teredo Oils United, has been authorised to seek for fossil fuels in the Catalan counties of Ripollès, Garrotxa and Osona. Ecologist groups criticise the procedure due to their “serious impact on the marine ecosystems”. Allegations or other offers to carry out the project that can compete with the original one, may be presented over the next two months.

Jordi Roura, Barça’s assistant manager, has made it very clear that he expects Real Madrid to be highly competitive in the Spanish Cup semi-final’s first leg on Wednesday night. “These are very tight matches that are decided by small details”, he observes. FC Barcelona and Real Madrid are facing the clasico in a very different situation: the Catalans lead the Spanish League, 15 points ahead the all-whites.

The Catalan Government has been insisting on the need to internally redistribute deficit objectives in Spain, splitting them in a fairer way in order to better pair the responsibility of the management of basic services with their share of Spain’s total deficit target. Currently, the Spanish Government is keeping most of the deficit allowed by the European Union for itself, despite the fact that it only represents 50% of Spain’s total public spending, and it has forced regional and local governments to a Draconian budget adjustment. The European Parliament asked EU Member States to internally split deficit targets in a fair way for the benefit of the public services aimed at the citizens. Now, the Spanish Ministry for the Economy, Luis de Guindos, talked about distributing deficit targets “equitably”, in front of the European Commissioner for Monetary Affairs, Olli Rehn.

After Nissan’s announcement that Barcelona would not build its new car model, the Catalan Government and the trade unions have been trying to persuade the Japanese company to change its mind. The six-month negotiation was derailed ten days ago, when Nissan considered the talks to be over as the unions refused to sign its final proposal. However, the company has not announced where the new car will be built yet. The union representing the majority of the Catalan plant’s workers has already signed Nissan’s proposal, but the unions CCOO and UGT – the main ones in Catalonia – have insisted on presenting their own proposal, based on Nissan’s need to make reductions of €30 million. A few days ago, Nissan stated that it was too late, but now it says it will study the union’s proposal to look at the details.