Highlights

Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, insisted on the Government’s will “to collaborate with a Spanish State which would allow Catalans to vote”, but warned that the offer to hold a binding referendum on Catalonia’s independence “doesn’t expire, but [it] won’t paralyse us either”.“It’s either a referendum or a referendum”, he stated before the Parliament during the first phase of the vote of confidence and forecast that the vote will take place “in the second half of September”. The Catalan President called on MPs to start “a chain of confidence which will not end tomorrow [when the vote of confidence will take place] but continue until Catalonia becomes an independent country”. In this sense, he warned those who won’t support the budget for 2017 not to support him on Thursday and “avoid further wasting of time”. Although Puigdemont assured that he was “not afraid” of the vote of confidence result, he also insisted that he will call new elections if he doesn’t obtain enough votes.

More than 120 media outlets will cover the 26th edition of the Castells Competition, taking place this weekend at the Tàrraco Arena Place, an old bullring located in Tarragona, southern Catalonia. This year’s edition will become an international window for Catalan culture as 380 journalists from China, Australia, United Kingdom, America and all around the globe have been accredited and will witness the event. 32 human tower groups (‘colles’) will perform, one of them from China: the Children of Hangzhou. Tarragona’s Mayor, Josep Fèlix Ballesteros, stated that this international media presence proves that the impact of castells “goes beyond our territory and is global”. More than 25,000 people will attend the competition this weekend, in an edition that is expected to be the most international and historic one, due to the high level of the human tower groups. 

Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, will face this Wednesday the first phase of a vote of confidence. First he will hold a speech during which he is expected to call for an agreed referendum in order to culminate Catalonia’s pro-independence process. On Thursday, the different groups in the Catalan Chamber will decide whether to renew their support in the President or not. For Puigdemont to pass the vote he needs a simple majority, that is to say more ‘yeses’ than ‘noes’.  Puigdemont announced in June that he will submit to a vote of confidence this September, after CUP’s veto of the budget for 2016. He considered then that the Government, led by pro-independence cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’ with the support of CUP, didn’t have “guaranteed stability” and therefore couldn’t rule.

This Thursday is the first anniversary of the Catalan Elections of the 27th of September 2015, which led to the first pro-independence majority in the Parliament. Cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’, which gathered together representatives from civil society and politicians such as left wing ERC’s leader, Oriol Junqueras, former MEP Raül Romeva and former President Mas, amongst others, won the elections, obtaining 62 MPs in the 135-seat Catalan Chamber. However, they didn’t obtain an absolute majority and negotiated with radical left pro-independence CUP, who got 10 MPs, in order to have a majority in favour of independence in the Catalan Chamber. After Mas failed twice to be invested as President, since CUP repeatedly refused to support him, former Mayor of Girona and President of the Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI), Carles Puigdemont, emerged as the candidate of consensus. Then, a term of office defined as ‘exceptional’ started, with the aim of launching a pro-independence roadmap and putting in place the basis for the future Catalan Republic.

Barcelona’s battle against illegal apartment rentals has recently taken a new turn.The European Holiday Home Association (EHHA) filed last Thursday a formal complaint with the European Commission against the “restrictions” on the renting of apartments for tourists in Barcelona. The city launchedlast July an action plan against illegal tourist accommodations. Residents consider them to be the main cause for the presence of tourists in quiet neighbourhoods and the disruption of neighbours’ tranquillity. Up to 30 million people visit Barcelona each year. Although tourism represents a significant revenue stream, the increasing number of reported incidents of noise, public urination and nudity in some spots is too much to handle. Barcelona’s action plan aims at detecting illegal sublets as well as denouncing platforms such as Airbnb and HomeAway for offering them on their platforms. The City Council has threatened to fine the websites €600,000 each, despite Airbnb contributing €740 million to Barcelona´s revenue in 2015. 

The Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, will face a vote of confidence this Wednesday to decide whether the Parliament renews the confidence in the current Government or new elections are called. Although radical left pro-independence CUP has already announced that they will support Puigdemont, former liberal party ‘Convergència’ now the Catalan Democratic Party (PDC) warned that the call for a unilateral referendum cannot be a red line to renew the confidence in the President. Moreover, the party asked the CUP to show "a sense of state, loyalty and unity" to complete the process towards independence. On the contrary, the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) warned the PDC that if the vote is orientated towards the pro-independence roadmap, they will not renew their confidence in Puigdemont.

Great success at this year’s edition of La Mercè Festival Barcelona. The festival was closed on Sunday with a Pyromusical performance in which fireworks, light and music were synchronised. Around 90,000 people gathered to see the show, which honoured Paris, the guest city of the 2016 celebration, and David Bowie and Prince, who passed away in January and April, respectively. The festival had a French and international accent and included performances of French artists like the street and circus art cooperative 2r2 and the prestigious theatre group Company Théâtre Silvia Monfort. However, during the celebration there were also several Catalan traditional activities such as human towers.

FC Barcelona overcame the absence of Leo Mesi and secured the win at Sporting Gijón on Saturday. The Argentine is going to be out for three weeks but was not missed, as the Barça team scored five away from home for the second week in a row. Luis Suárez, Rafinha, Neymar (2) and Arda Turan were the scorers of the goals that allowed FC Barcelona to achieve victory, three of them coming in the last 10 minutes. After the midweek draw with Atlético de Madrid, Luis Enrique made five changes to the starting eleven. One of those was Rafinha, who started in place of Messi. The Brazilian justified his election when, on 32 minutes, he scored the second goal.

The leader of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), Pedro Sánchez, will not offer the Catalan Government a referendum on independence in exchange for his investiture, said the Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont. The politician stressed during an interview on Thursday that PSOE backbenchers are already warning Sánchez against this possibility, despite the leader having not made any move in that direction. The General Coordinator of the Catalan Democratic Party (PDC), Marta Pascal, stated on Wednesday that the referendum is a “red line”. “We will not sit at the negotiation table unless the referendum issue is solved”, Pascal said, while stressing that there will be “no chance” to debate Sánchez’s investiture if Catalonia’s right to a referendum is not recognised.

Catalonia has the “cultural capital” and the “knowledge” to promote a new model of production, more sustainable than the “obsolete” one. This is the main conclusion of a lecture given at the conference “A new Economic Paradigm for a Sustainable Catalonia’ by economist Jeremy Rifkin organized on Wednesday in Sant Cugat, a city near Barcelona, by the Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia (Diplocat). According to the sociologist and political advisor, Catalonia has the potential to “lead the way of Regional Europe” to the ‘Third Industrial Revolution’. Rifkin predicts an economic paradigm shift as a result of two merging factors: Internet technology and renewable energies, which will create a powerful Third Industrial Revolution where people will produce their own green energy and will share it on a sort of “Energy Internet”, in the same way we share information today.

Paris, the city of light, is the guest at this year’s edition of ‘La Mercè’, the festival of Barcelona’s patron saint. From the 22nd to the 25th of September many French artists will perform at Ciutadella Park. “Our desire is to keep the spirit of an open and cosmopolitan city in contact with other capitals, in this case, Paris", said Jaume Collboni, Barcelona’s Deputy Mayor for Culture. Popular activities such as ‘cercaviles’, parades which include all the folklore symbols of the city, and ‘castellers’, traditional Catalan human towers, will also be part of the programme. The festival will finish with the traditional ‘Pyromusical’, a performance where music and fireworks are synchronised.

Visitors coming to Barcelona in 2017 may be levied with a tourist tax. This would be added to the fee Catalonia already applies to people staying in Catalan hotels, camping sites and tourist cottages. The Municipal Commission of Economy and Finance passed on Tuesday a proposal presented by liberal ‘Convergència i Unió’ (CiU) in which the political party asks the local government to consider the application of a tourist tax, fee or public levy. The aim is to balance the costs and benefits of receiving around 30 million visitors each year. The text approved also insists on the necessity of demanding from the Catalan Government the transfer of all the revenue collected from tourists visiting the city, and not just half of it.

Catalonia is a land of wine and cava, therefore Catalan wineries want to expand their market beyond the Catalan borders. This week the 6th International Wine Business Meeting is taking place in Lleida, in eastern Catalonia. In this edition the guest country is Russia. The aim of this event is to promote Catalan exports and find new trade opportunities. Up to 20 Catalan wineries are participating at the meeting and considering whether to increase or open their exports to Russia. For their part, a dozen of the major wine and cava importers in Russia are attending the meeting with the aim of for new trading partners, which offer quality but which also make products that the average Russian consumer can afford.

El Vendrell, a coastal town near Tarragona in southern Catalonia, will hold from the 29th of September to the 30th of October some 20 activities to commemorate the 140th anniversary of Pau Casals’ birth. The programme for ‘Pau Casals Month’ includes conferences, concerts and exhibitions which aim to pay tribute to the prominent cellist. The two principal activities will be the talks given by Casals’s widow and the Abbot of Montserrat, Josep Maria Soler Canals. The commemoration, which last year went on for a week, has been extended to a month this 2016. El Vendrell’s Councillor for Culture, Eva Serramià, stated during the presentation of the programme on Monday that the goal of this extension is to “surpass the local sphere and situate El Vendrell in the international scene”.

The Catalan and Valencian governments, together with social and economic representatives, have created a common front to push for the execution of the plan for the Mediterranean Corridor Railway. On Monday, they urged the Spanish Government to change its attitude and undertake pending investments within a “credible timeframe”. In a document presented after the bilateral summit celebrated at Valencia’s Generalitat Palace, the representatives demanded the realisation of the Corridor’s technical configuration and the designation of a Technical Coordinator in order to build a piece of infrastructure that should have a “high capacity” and be “efficient”. The delays in the construction of the infrastructure are affecting private investment: in Catalonia and Valencia pending investments are worth €300 million, according to the Catalan Minister for Planning and Sustainability, Josep Rull.