Highlights

Three Syrian families, including 4 minors, make up the 10 refugees which will be relocated to Catalonia. They are part of a group of 20 people which arrived this Tuesday in Madrid. 44 more people, expected to arrive on the 30^th of May, will follow this first group and 19 more will arrive on the 1^st of June. 67 more are due to arrive in Spain by the end of June. In addition, 50 more refugees from Italy will begin to be hosted in Spain shortly, of which 18 are already in Spain as part of a pilot programme. In total, 586 people will be relocated to Spain by the end of June, according to the current Spanish Minister for Home Affairs, Jorge Fernández Díaz. Thus, Spain will become the fourth European country in terms of number of refugees hosted, but so far it only hosts 18 refugees of the 16,000 it has agreed to relocate. 

The Camp Nou was treated to a night of emotions and spectacle – capped when the football squad appeared one by one, in order of shirt numbers, to rapturous cheers from the adoring crowds. Luis Enrique and his staff were also honoured in a fitting tribute to all the hard work they do, and which so often goes unnoticed behind the scenes. Celebrations like this are becoming common place of late at the Camp Nou, and may things remain that way! With 28 titles won in the last decade, the legend just keeps growing. The night erupted in a sea of red and blue confetti and pyrotechnics and so the curtain came down on another triumphant season at FC Barcelona. After the summer, it all starts again!

The Catalan Government’s budget for 2016 has been drafted and €700 million more is to be allocated to social spending compared to the budget of 2015, according to the Catalan Vice President and Minister for Economy Oriol Junqueras. He also stated that the Health sector will see an increase of €317 million, while the Education budget will increase by €211 million and that of Social Services will grow by €173 million. An additional 50 million more euros are to be allocated to the sectors of Universities and Research, stated the Catalan Vice President. The budget will be increased for the first time in many years, with the goal of being “realistic” and avoid “generating expectations that cannot be satisfied”. The budget will be delivered this Tuesday to Parliament’s President Carme Forcadell and opened for discussion amongst the groups in the Catalan Chamber.

Three Catalan business schools were ranked in the fifty best in the world category, according to the the 18^th edition of the elaborate analysis by the Financial Times (FT) Executive Education 2016. The three schools that received the highest scores were the Iese Business School (in first place), the Esade Business School (in eighth place) and the Eada Business School Barcelona (in 44^th place). The final analysis was a composite of two separate rankings, a combination of Customised Programmes and Open-Enrolment Programmes. The Iese Business School was placed as number one in the Customised Programmes Ranking and number two in the Open-Enrolment Programmes Rankings, “coming closest of any school since the survey was launched in 1999 to topping both rankings”, according to the Financial Times. 

The victory in the Vicente Calderón strengthens FC Barcelona's position as the most successful team of recent years as they claim the Copa del Rey for the second successive season. Jordi Alba’s goal in the seventh minute of extra time capped a stunning turnaround of events and handed FC Barcelona a well-deserved 2–0 victory over Sevilla in the 2016 Copa del Rey final on Sunday night at the Vicente Calderón Stadium in Madrid. With the La Liga championship already in the bag, Sunday’s Copa del Rey win — the 28th in Club history — means Barça have emerged on top in both of this season’s national competitions, giving them the coveted domestic double and ensuring the 2015/16 season will be hailed as a success for years to come.

83 cultural and art institutions in Barcelona and the surrounding areas will open their doors for free this weekend during the so called ‘Night of Museums’ . The event is held across 40 countries in Europe, and offers cultural events such as exhibitions, circus acts, screenings, poetry readings, and much more. Participating museums will be open from evening until past midnight, and will showcase 60 temporary and permanent exhibitions. This 2016 edition of the festival sees the novel participation of Barcelona’s collaborative creative spaces the Art Factories, in the ‘Creation & Museums’ initiative. Initially, the presentation of the 65,000-piece stamp collection belonging to Ramon Marull will be presented in the exhibition ‘Estigues atent al segell’. 

Those supporters who carry pro-independence flags at the Copa del Rey final will be able to access the stadium. The judge of judiciary number 11 of Madrid accepted the appeal presented by lawyers' group 'Drets', which called for the “automatic suspension” of the Spanish government’s decision to ban the flags during the football match between FC Barcelona and Sevilla FC. Thus, according to the resolution, the cautionary measure requested by ‘Drets’ has been “partially estimated” and therefore “the execution of the appealed action is suspended”. The decision announced by the Spanish government’s Delegate in Madrid, Concepción Dancausa, triggered much criticism amongst civil society but also from most of the political parties. FC Barcelona also presented a lawsuit which is still being studied by another judge in Madrid

50,000 euros were raised for the Red Cross’ work with refugees in the charity auction ‘Joan Miró & Refugees’, hosted by Christie’s Auction House in London this Thursday. The collection was comprised of 24 pieces and the proceeds will all go towards aiding the Red Cross in their “attention and acceptance of the refugee population that is amassing in Eastern Europe”, stated Red Cross Vice Chairman Rosa Maria Marco. One of the display features of the collection was the piece ‘Thank You’, a sign of gratitude for the Red Cross, created by the artist in 1974. Indeed, Miró had a connection with the organisation since the 60s, when a young doctor in one of their hospitals saved the life of his only daughter, whose car had been hit by a train. The auction was organised with the help of the Mayoral Gallery, which helps showcase Barcelona’s most important artists of the post-war period.

Former Catalan Minister for the Presidency, Frances Homs, is being investigated by Spain’s Supreme Court for helping to organise the 9-N symbolic vote on independence in 2014. Homs, who is currently the leader of Catalan coalition ‘Democràcia i Llibertat’ in the Spanish Parliament, is accused of disobedience, perversion of justice and misappropriation of public funds, the same charges for which former Catalan President Artur Mas, former Vice-President Joana Ortega and former Catalan Minister of Education Irene Rigau were also summonsed last October. Homs lamented the “low democratic quality” of the Spanish State and assured that he will testify before the court “carrying the pro-independence flag”. 

Secretary General of ‘abertzale’ Basque separatist party Sortu and former member of Basque terrorist group ETA, Arnaldo Otegi met this Wednesday with Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell. The meeting provoked huge media expectation and also triggered fierce criticism amongst several groups in the Parliament. The People’s Party of Catalonia (PPC) and Spanish Unionist ‘Ciutadans accused Forcadell of “listening to terrorists” and met with the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT) instead. Earlier this morning, Otegi explained in an interview with Catalunya Radio that Catalonia’s pro-independence process “has no turning back” and that the aim of his visit is “to listen and to learn”. Otegi also hoped that the Basque pro-independence process would have a leader such as former Catalan President Artur Mas.

Barcelona’s CosmoCaixa science museum has inaugurated an exhibition replicating that of the Natural History Museum in London called ‘Wildlife Photographer of the Year’. The 100 photos on display were selected out of 42,000 images received in the eponymous contest put forth by BBC Wildlife Magazine in 2015. The pictures chosen for the exhibition were also selected because they stimulated “defence of biodiversity and protection of the environment” stated the director of Research and Knowledge of the ‘Fundació la Caixa’ foundation, Jordi Portabella. One can also admire the two winning images from the 2015 contest: ‘A tale of two Foxes’ and ‘Ruffs on Display’, taken respectively by Don Gutoski and Ondrej Pelánek.

The Spanish government’s Delegate in Madrid, Concepción Dancausa, warned that those supporters who attend the Copa del Rey final between Barça and Sevilla carrying pro-independence flags won’t be able to access the stadium. According to Dancausa, 2,500 police agents will work to guarantee the security at Vicente Calderón Stadium in Madrid and will set in place two lines of security controlling access to the arena. Thus, they “will make sure” that nobody is carrying “dangerous items such as or bottles or materials of racist, xenophobic, political or religious propaganda which may lead to public confrontations”, she stated. At the last Champions League final on the 6th June, UEFA fined FC Barcelona for showing pro-independence flags during the match and earlier this year the club was sanctioned with a 30,000 euro fine for the same reason.

Catalan Minister for Planning and Sustainability Josep Rull is at the UN Headquarters in New York, together with over 100 representatives of local and regional governments from around the world, in order to prepare ‘Habitat III’, the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, which will be held in Quito, Ecuador in October. In his intervention, Rull emphasised Catalonia’s push for independence and the legitimacy of such a process in front of the international community. I am a member of a democratically elected government that is working to become an independent state. Earlier, Rull greeted the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon “on behalf of Catalonia”. The Catalan Minister also expressed the Government’s point of view regarding the draft of the New Urban Agenda, a compilation of pledges and new obligations which set in place a new global strategy on urbanisation for the next two decades and which is expected to be approved at the Quito summit. 

Barça earn 24th league success with win at Estadio Nuevo Los Cármenes thanks to a hat-trick from Pichichi Luis Suárez, which confirmed the Uruguayan’s status as the division’s top marksman with 40 goals. All in all, it was a dominant campaign from Barça, who topped the table for all but eleven weeks of the season. “It was a deserved title which shows that the team knows how to bounce back from a bad spell,” Luis Enrique said, referring to a blip which saw his side fall to three defeats in April. Despite the wealth of talent that the squad possesses, Luis Enrique was keen to praise the team’s grit over the course of the campaign: “The hard work of the team throughout the season must be praised”. “It is the competition which shows the real state of a team” and that “the title is very hard to win”, he concluded.

“This official trip and the meetings we have held prove that Catalonia’s political process generates international interest”, stated Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, on the last day of his official trip to London. Indeed, this is so much the case that Spain’s government sent two officials to the British capital in order to “counteract the explanations that the Catalan government has been giving first hand”, he lamented. Puigdemont made these statements on his last day in London, while visiting the headquarters of the Catalan bank ‘Banc de Sabadell’ in the City. “The European political, economic and social agents want to know first-hand what’s going on in Catalonia and why” assured Puigdemont, which “refutes the Spanish mantra, according to which the Catalan process doesn’t interest anybody”.