The Barça striker will be available for the Spanish Cup quarter final’s second leg to be payed on Thursday against Málaga. Villa has been given the medical all clear to play on Tuesday, following his recovery from a calf injury.
The Barcelona-based brand, which is part of the Volkswagen group, had announced an 8.3% drop of car sales in 2012, compared to 2011, due to the recession in Spain, which is Seat’s main market. The increase of sales in foreign markets could not balance out last year’s results. In order to recover from this drop in sales, the company has decided to slow down the production of new cars and 400 workers are to be made redundant. Seat hired 600 temporary workers a few months ago due to positive results in 2011, two thirds of which will be laid off. The company will discuss its plans with the trade unions.
The 50th anniversary of the prestigious international competition of opera and oratorio-lied singing, named in honour of the Catalan tenor Francesc Viñas, awarded the joint first prize to Katerina Tretyakova, from Lithuania, and Michal Jakub Partyka, from Poland. The second prize went to Amartuvshin, from Mongolia, and the third prize was for Valeriu Caradja, from Moldova. The first junior prize was for Marina Nachkebiya, from Georgia. The final stage of the competition took place on Friday with 15 singers taking part in Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu. The award ceremony was on Sunday and the winners showed the audience their talent. Besides, the Liceu Theatre organised an exhibition and published a book to showcase Francesc Viñas’ career and the history of the competition named after him.
The 188th edition of the traditional ‘Tres Tombs’ animal parade, in honour of Saint Anthony the Abbot, took place in Barcelona last weekend. In Catalonia, he is the patron saint of the animals. The parade includes a blessing of pets ceremony. Traffic was stopped in the main streets of the Catalan capital’s Ciutat Vella district and in the Sant Antoni neighbourhood to give way to another kind of vehicles: donkeys, ponies, horses and old carriages. Although a popular festivity, this year’s 'Tres Tombs' couldn’t keep a hold on its audience as the cloudy morning became a very rainy day.
An injury time winner for Real Sociedad put an end to Barça’s unbeaten league season, with Tito’s team going down 3-2 despite having been 0-2 up in the first half.
Trade unions refused to sign the Japanese company’s final offer to increase the competitiveness of Barcelona’s plant by reducing salaries and changing working conditions, so Nissan announced the end of the talks after 6 months of negotiation and meditation by the Catalan Government. Before Christmas, the Japanese company had already warned the unions that talks were coming to an end as the production of the new sedan car needed to be allocated. Back then Nissan presented a final offer, which has however been modified in the last few days. Once the agreement seemed to be imminent, Nissan floated the idea of a two-day reduction in holiday days, which the unions immediately rejected. Nissan warned that its Barcelona plant might now face “a slow-death scenario”.
The main Catalan airport is increasing the number of intercontinental flights in terms of both destination and frequency, one of the strategic drives implementing its expansion plan. Barcelona’s Airport already has 31% of the intercontinental traffic in Spain, despite the fact that the partially state-owned Iberia’s international flights abandoned the Catalan airport years ago in favour of Madrid Barajas. Barcelona Airport has attracted other airlines, such as Emirates, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines, and has specialised in connections to the Middle East and Asia, although it also has flights to the Americas. Last week, there was a press release that stated that 35.15 million passengers went through Barcelona Airport in 2012.
Barça Manager has admitted that he was surprised by Víctor Valdés’ announcement today that he will not be extending his contract with FC Barcelona any further than June 30, 2014. However, Vilanova insisted that “he did not ask to leave, he just said he’s not renewing his contract”. Vilanova has confirmed that Valdés will continue to be the first choice keeper, saying that “as long as he is with us, he’ll be our goalkeeper and we have to help him as he would help us”.
An international study with the participation of the Hospital Clínic IDIBAPS, which is a leading research centre at a world level on AIDS/HIV and other common diseases, has proved that an anti-retroviral treatment carried out just after the infection delays the damage to the patient’s immune system and reduces the risk of transmission. The results of clinical tests on 366 infected individuals confirmed that the sooner and longer an initial anti-retroviral treatment is applied, the later the life-long treatments have to start. However, despite the results, researchers insist that is still too soon to change the current AIDS/HIV treatment protocols.
The Catalan Josep ‘Pep’ Guardiola has reached an agreement with FC Bayern München to manage the football team as from next season until 2016. Finally, after rumours circulated pairing him with Manchester City and Chelsea, Guardiola has chosen the German club for its way of understanding football, which is much closer to the Catalan’s own approach based on attacking, playing nicely and working with home-grown players. Pep Guardiola quit FC Barcelona in June to take a year’s sabbatical, and moved to New York with his family. He will replace Jupp Heynckes, who is retiring at the end of the current season, in Munich.
Barça and Málaga drew in the Spanish Cup’s quarter final first leg. Camacho’s late goal cancelled out Barça’s comeback and leaves everything wide open ahead of the return leg in Andalusia. Iturra put the visitors ahead and although Barça almost immediately bounced back with goals from Messi and Puyol, not even against ten men after Monreal was ordered off were they able to extend their lead.
The Barcelona-born electronic and advanced music festival, which has become one of the world’s top events in its category, has unveiled part of its programme. The Pet Shop Boys, Kraftwerk, Darkstar, Two Door Cinema Club and Karenn are some of the artists included in Barcelona’s Sónar Festival, which will run in the Catalan capital between the 13th and 15th of June.
The Spanish Government is keeping most of the 4.5% public deficit allowed to the entire Spanish public sector in 2013 for itself, despite managing only 50% of the total public spending. It has allowed itself a 3.8% deficit while it has imposed a 0.7% target on the regional governments, which manage almost 40% of the public spending including basic services such as healthcare and education. The European Parliament report indirectly asks Madrid to relax the Autonomous Communities’ deficit targets according to the basic services they provide. In addition, it also states that regional governments should have greater fiscal capacities and depend less on central government transfers. Furthermore, the report asks “some member states” to eliminate the ministries whose powers have been devolved and to “reduce unnecessary defence expenditures”.
The Constitutional Court has accepted the Spanish Government’s appeal against three measures adopted by the Catalan Executive to reduce its deficit, some of them negotiated last spring with the People’s Party (PP). The Spanish Government, which is run by the PP, now believes that these measures invade its own powers, “break market unity” and go against the principle of “equality for all Spaniards”. While accepting the appeal, the Court has temporarily suspended the application of the fees and taxes for a five-month period, which could be extended. The Catalan Government will appeal the decision as it believes the measures to be in line with the Constitution and within its jurisdiction. The drug prescription fee brought in €46 million in its first 6 months and it reduced public spending on medicines.
Combined with the salary reductions and the taxation increase, the rise in inflation means that Catalans have lost purchasing power. The spending of the average Catalan family increased by some 110 euros per month compared to 2011 in order to buy the same amount of goods and services, while the net revenue decreased. In the whole of Spain, the inflation rate for the last 12 months was 2.9%, affected by the VAT increase approved by the Spanish Government. In Catalonia, it was higher due to fees adopted by the Catalan Government in order to reduce the public deficit: namely those affecting drug prescriptions and university education.