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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.

Four goals from Leo Messi and another from Pedro gave Barça a big win against Osasuna, who played with 10 men from the 26th minute. The victory put to bed any doubts after last week’s defeat to Real Sociedad. Such was Barça’s superiority that they were able to give a rest to some of their players ahead of this week’s tough schedule, with Wednesday’s ‘clasico’ against Real Madrid at the Spanish Cup’s semi-finals.

Barcelona’s reign as host to the Handball World Championship came to an end on Sunday evening as Spain destroyed Denmark by no less than sixteen goals at a sold-out Palau Sant Jordi (35-19). Seven Catalan players, most of them on the books of FC Barcelona Intersport, were part of the sixteen-strong world championship winning team. Last night, Croatia beat Slovenia 31-26 to take the bronze medal on the podium.

Barcelona’s Palau Sant Jordi played host on Friday evening to two riveting semi-finals in the World Handball Championship as Spain beat surprise package Slovenia 26-22 thanks largely to a strong defence while Denmark made it through to tomorrow’s final after defeating Croatia by a wider margin: 30-24.

Despite having a balanced budget in 2012, the National Theatre of Catalonia has decided to close the most alternative auditorium of the three it has since it will have smaller funds in 2013. The theatre expects a reduction in the occupancy rate due to the economic recession and therefore selling fewer tickets, resulting in a 28% reduction in its own resources. The institution has readjusted the 2012/2013 season by cancelling the spectacle ‘Panorama’ by Philippe Decouflé and by eliminating 70 performances of other plays in the other theatre rooms.

After an 8.3% drop in car sales in 2012, SEAT announced it would lay off 400 temporary workers and it would reduce administration and commercial costs, to the equivalent of 340 additional jobs. Finally, after three days of negotiation, the car company and the workers’ representatives have signed an agreement by which the workers will lose part of the extra hours accumulated but there will not be additional layoffs or a salary reduction. However, the 400 temporary workers will be made redundant and will have to leave the company. Additionally, the Spanish Government has announced that it will double the public budget to stimulate car purchases.