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Barcelona-based car manufacturer Seat, which is part of the Volkswagen Group, delivered 8.3% fewer cars in 2012 compared to the previous year. In total, it sold 321,000 vehicles, instead of the 350,000 units of 2011. The decrease is due to the drop in car sales in Spain because of the economic recession. However, Seat sold 22.5% more cars in Germany and 8.2% more vehicles in the UK. The Catalan car manufacturer also increased its sales in Mexico by 16.5%. Overall, the Volkswagen Group sold 9.07 million cars in 2012, an increase of 11.2%. The group obtained positive results in all markets except Southern Europe (-0.3%) and Western Europe – excluding Germany – (-6.5%).

The Catalan theatre company, famous for its idiosyncratic style, will unveil its own particular vision of the opera classic ‘Un ballo in maschera’ by Giuseppe Verdi in Australia, which will be performed from the 16th of January to the 12th of February. Then the troupe will move its show to Brussels, Oslo and Buenos Aires. The Catalan group, started in the late 1970s, is famous for other opera adaptations including Wagner’s ‘The Ring of the Nibelung’, Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’, George Enescu’s ‘Oedipe’ and György Ligeti’s ‘Le Grand Macabre’, all of them having toured worldwide. In fact, with the latest two titles and now ‘Un ballo in maschera’, La Fura dels Baus will be returning to Brussels’ La Monnaie Theatre for their third time in four years.

Goals from Messi, Cesc and Thiago gave Barça their 18th win from the first 19 Spanish League games, the championship record. The three points keep Barça 11 ahead of Atletico Madrid and stretch their advantage over the reigning champions Real Madrid to 18 after an incredible first half to the campaign. The win was a perfect example of Barça’s collective spirit, with a wonderful performance of possession football that left Malaga with no options whatsoever.

The Catalan bank has issued debt securities for €1 billion that attracted a demand of €3.4 billion. As other multinational companies such as CaixaBank and Gas Natural Fenosa did this week, Banc Sabadell is profiting from the lower spread in order to pay lower interest rates than they were a few months ago. The Catalan private bank has obtained a spread of 250 basis points over the midswap rate, which is a better interest rate than that obtained by the Spanish Treasury in its recent operations.

The series, produced by the Catalan Public Television Broadcaster and Filmax, has been exported to several countries and Steven Spielberg and Marta Kauffman are going to shoot a remake for the ABC network. ‘Polseres vermelles’ – which literally means ‘red bracelets’ in Catalan - describes the life of a group of six teenagers who live in a hospital as patients. It is based on the personal experiences of its creator, Albert Espinosa, who had cancer as a child. The first season was aired in 2011 and it became a huge success with audiences. The second season premiered on Thursday and will be broadcast as from Monday on TV3 at prime time.

Thiago scored his first two goals of the season; Villa also got two, the first after a terrific individual move, and Alexis got back to his scoring ways with a brace. With this win, Barça reach the Spanish Cup quarter finals. Next up will be Malaga and Pellegrini. The first leg is next week at the Camp Nou and the return in a fortnight’s time at La Rosaleda Stadium. The downside to the night was injuries suffered by Sergi Roberto and Villa.

The IDIBAPS has opened a new research centre of more than 5,000 m2, where more than 200 researchers split into 23 different research groups will be working. It will focus its work on oncology, neurosciences and cell therapies along with infectious, respiratory, cardiovascular and renal diseases. The new centre has been possible thanks to a donation by the private foundation CELLEX, sponsored by Pere Mir. The new centre is located within the University of Barcelona’s Faculty of Medicine, which is integrated into the prestigious Hospital Clínic. The centre consolidates Catalonia, and in particular Barcelona, as one of Europe’s main biomedical poles.

The number of people travelling through the main Catalan airport reached a new record last year, despite the economic recession. 35,145,176 people travelled through the airport, a 2.2% increase compared to 2011. Madrid-Barajas, Barcelona Airport’s main competitor, saw the number of its passengers drop by 9% to a total of 45.19 million people. Barcelona’s improvement is due to the significant increase in international passengers, since domestic ones dropped by 9.6%. The greatest increase was in the number of passengers arriving from or going to another EU state, which grew by 9.2%. People flying from or to outside the European Union increased by 8.9% and intercontinental passengers by 3.45%.

After two days of protests making Barcelona El Prat Airport being without cabs for several hours, taxi union representatives and the Metropolitan Taxi Institute – in charge of managing the sector – have agreed to eliminate the shift system and find another way to reduce the number of taxis on the streets. Taxi drivers have stopped all their protests and they will be using the previous system establishing two days of rest per week. The shift system had been implemented to better pair the availability of taxis to the real demand, which has decreased because of the recession. The system had been approved by Barcelona taxi drivers in a binding referendum. However, one week after its implementation, some of them protested stating that it had reduced their turnover.

The operation has rocketed CaixaBank shares in the Spanish stock exchange market, which increased by 11.75% in just one day. The Catalan CaixaBank, which is the largest bank in Spain, successfully issued €1 billion in 3-year senior bonds. The operation has attracted more than 300 orders from institutional investors, representing around €5 billion, which has allowed the Barcelona-based bank to sell its bonds at a better price thanks to the significant oversubscription. 80% of the bonds issued were placed among international investors, confirming the positive recognition CaixaBank has in international financial markets. It was the first time their senior bonds have been issued on the international markets since 2010.

The Catalan Government has created a Treasury Secretariat within its Finance Ministry, which will be in charge of managing revenue, with the objective of developing Catalonia’s own tax office. The creation of a treasury of its own would allow the Catalan Executive to collect all the taxes generated in Catalonia, as Navarra and the Basque Country have been doing for decades. It is one of the electoral promises of the governing Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) and is also part of the parliamentary stability agreement reached with the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC). A Catalan tax office collecting all the taxes is an historical claim of a large part of the Catalan society. However the Secretariat created is in line with the CiU’s strategy of creating state structures and it has been criticised by the pro-Spanish unity parties.

The Spanish Government has finally finished the construction work and circulation tests on the last 131-kilometre stretch of railroad to France. Barcelona, Girona and Figueres are now linked by High Speed Train, although a direct connection between the Catalan capital and France will have to wait until next April. Now, passengers can travel from Barcelona to Girona in only 37 minutes and to Figueres in a total of 53 minutes. If they want to continue to France, they will have to switch trains until April, when the Spanish trains will be standardised to be able to run in France. However, from now on, the Spanish and the French High Speed railway networks will finally be connected, twenty years after the Madrid-Seville line was unveiled. The Catalan President has emphasised that Catalonia is the Autonomous Community with the smallest amount of public infrastructures in Spain.

Taxi drivers have protested against the new car shifts implemented as of last week. The new shift system affects all Barcelona taxis and it has been designed to reduce the number of cars on the streets in order to increase drivers’ profits by reducing the available taxis at a given time. However, some taxi drivers think the new shifts cause their turnover to drop. For this reason they have decided to protest by not serving Barcelona El Prat Airport or Barcelona Sants Station with cabs on Monday afternoon. The Metropolitan Taxi Institute, in charge of managing the sector, has already announced “talks” with taxi union representatives to “evaluate” the new system.

‘Blancanieves’ with 12 nominations and ‘El Bosc’ with 11 are leading the race at this year’s Gaudí awards ceremony. They are followed by ‘Els nens salvatges’ and ‘Fènix 11-23’, who are also candidates for the Best Film in Catalan. The Premis Gaudí are organised by the Catalan Cinema Academy and they recognise Catalan productions or movies with a significant presence of Catalan artistic and technical staff. They also award a prize for European productions. Out of the 89 films in the competition, 30 have received one or several nominations, becoming candidates to receive one of the 22 awards. ‘The Impossible’, ‘In The House’, ‘Le Havre’ and ‘The Intouchables’ are candidates for the Best European Movie.

All towns in Catalonia welcome the arrival of the Three Wise Men on the 5th of January. Children and parents gather on the streets throughout the country to greet the Kings from the East in an enormous display of colour, sweets and presents that cannot fail to delight everyone. The Three Wise Men often travel by camel, but they have also been known to visit some towns using floats, classic cars, boats or even helicopters! Catalan children are very excited that night, because this is the “magical night” on which they traditionally receive their big Christmas presents – although some also get presents from other magic figures such as Santa or the very Catalan tradition of the ‘caga tió’ on the 24th of December.