catalan way

The Catalan Government’s Spokesperson and Minister for the Presidency, Francesc Homs, has highlighted that the results of a self-determination vote in Catalonia would not be invalidated by a secondary vote held at Spanish level. “This is not about putting the Catalan people’s decision-making capacity in somebody else’s hands”, stated Homs on Friday. The previous day, Homs had proposed to hold such a referendum at Spanish level since he was foreseeing the need to adopt Constitutional changes based on the results of the Catalan self-determination vote. He stated that firstly “the opinion of Catalans” had to be known; secondly, a negotiation based on this vote’s results should be held between Catalan and Spanish authorities; and, thirdly, since it is likely that Constitutional changes will be needed, a referendum at Spanish level should be held.

The Catalan economy has continued on a positive trend during the fourth quarter of 2013, also speeding up the recovery process. According to data released on Friday by the Catalan Ministry of Economy and Knowledge alongside the Catalan Institute of Statistics (Idescat), Catalonia’s GDP grew by 0.4% in the fourth quarter of 2013, while the Spanish average stood at 0.3%. In the whole year, the Catalan GDP has decreased by 0.6 %, while in 2012 it dropped by 1.3%. The continued good results in exports due to the increasing external demand and the improvement of the domestic demand have driven the economy forward.

Catalan cinema will once again play a significant part in this year’s prestigious Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), with the presentation of two feature films and one short-film. The Catalan co-production Aloft ('No ploris, vola'), by Claudia Llosa, who also directed the 2009 Golden Bear winner The Milk of Sorrow, will compete in the official section of the festival, held between the 6^th and the 16^th of February. ‘El somni’ (The Dream) directed by Franc Aleu and centred on the creative dishes of the Roca brothers, universally acclaimed Catalan Chefs, will be screened during the ‘Culinary session’ of the festival. Finally, short-film lovers will discover ‘TABA, El Juego En La Mesa’ (TABA, Table Games), directed by Pep Gatell and Eloi Colom, and produced by the ‘Fura dels Baus’ a Barcelona theatrical group famous for its innovative performances.

The Spokesperson of the Catalan Government and Minister for the Presidency, Francesc Homs, stated that the opinion of the Catalan citizens, in the first place, had to be known through a consultation vote. After having achieved this and according to its outcome, negotiations between Catalan and Spanish authorities should take place in order to change the current status quo. The results of such negotiations, which would very likely lead to a reform of Spain’s Constitution, would then have to be voted by all Spaniards through a second referendum, according to Homs’ hypothesis. In an interview with the Spanish nationalist radio station COPE, owned by the Spanish Catholic Church, Homs wondered if “an Autonomous Community has the capacity to propose the start of a Constitution reform-process?”

After a great controversy and outraged reaction from businesspeople, politicians and academics, the Spanish Government has amended its previous decision and on Tuesday evening it announced that it will publish the so-called fiscal balances. This financial instrument shows how much money the citizens and companies from a territory give to the central government and how much of this money comes back in form of funds, investments and services. Previous studies showed that Catalonia has been giving away an average of 8% of its GDP each year since 1986, which represents 6 times the entire Marshall Plan in comparable currencies. The Spanish Government was supposed to publish the fiscal balances in December but a month later it announced it would not do so since they were “used to foster Catalonia’s independence” claims. Catalan parties warned Rajoy not to alter the figures and calculation to produce the result he wishes.

A total of 92,833 spectators attended the Teatre Lliure during 2013. This is the best figure registered by the Catalan theater venue in its history and led to €1,151,594 in revenue. The occupation rate reaches 73.2%, the same as last year.  The Teatre Lliure has two venues: one in Montjuïc and the other in Gràcia. The first one is the largest one and registered 62,893 spectators with a 69.2% seat occupation rate. The Gràcia venue posted 30,140 spectators for an 84.9% occupation rate. ‘Els feréstecs’ (The Wild) was the most popular show.

The President of the Port of Barcelona, ??Sixte Cambra, said on Wednesday that the total container traffic had reached around one million TEUs for the full year (the reference unit for cargo ships, equivalent to 20 feet containers). “This is the record number of the best pre-crisis times, which happened in 2007” stated Cambra during an informational breakfast in Madrid. The President of the Port of Barcelona also underlined the change in trends since in 2007, in spite of the record number of containers, “more than 60% were imports; in 2013 over 60% were exported containers.”

In annual terms, there were 27,946 less registered unemployed people in January 2014 than in January 2013, meaning a 4.22 % drop. Seven consecutive months of decreases in the registered unemployed figures had not been achieved since June 2007. Besides, in monthly terms, the latest figures also show a positive trend. Indeed, January is traditionally a month where unemployment increases, with the only drop recorded since 1997, the beginning of the series, dating back to January 1998. In January 2014, unemployment grew by 8,999 people compared to December 2013, the mildest increase registered in that month since 2007. Referring to these latest figures, the Catalan Deputy Minister for Employment stated that he was “moderately optimistic”.

In order “to guarantee the general interest”, the Catalan Executive rejects changing “a single comma” of the linguistic immersion model in place in Catalonia’s school system despite the latest judicial sentences forcing to introduce Spanish as a language of instruction, as confirmed by the Government’s Spokesperson Francesc Homs. The Catalan Executive “will continue to implement Catalonia’s Education Law (LEC)” and will file an appeal against last week’s sentence issued by the Catalan High Court (TSJC), interpreting a previous decision from the Spanish Supreme Court. Furthermore, the Catalan Council for Constitutional Guarantees – an independent advisory body on jurisdiction matters – stated that the Spanish Government’s Education Reform is “unconstitutional” and goes against Catalonia’s self-government and its own laws such as the LEC.

The Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia (Diplocat) has participated in a short observation mission in Costa Rica for the presidential and parliamentary elections which were held last Sunday. According to a press release, Diplocat deployed 8 electoral observation experts on the ground to visit 50 polling stations across Costa Rica. In their report, Diplocat congratulated the people of Costa Rica and the Elections Supreme Court for the peaceful and well-organised electoral process. However, they also uncovered the existence of inequalities between political parties during the campaign, especially regarding access to the media. By participating in such missions, Catalonia reasserts its commitment to promoting peace and strengthening democracy worldwide.  

Three parties, which between them represent 63% of the Catalan Parliament, registered a second bill, identical to the motion approved two weeks ago, in order to ensure that the Spanish Parliament will discuss it before the summer. January’s motion and this latest bill both ask the Spanish Parliament to transfer the powers to organise referendums to the Catalan Government. The parties are using their MPs in Spain’s Lower Chamber to file their own bill and put it earlier in the plenary’s planning. As Spanish Parliament groups they are entitled to register a certain number of bills to be debated within the next two or three months. Otherwise, there was a risk that the Catalan Parliament’s motion would have to wait 9 months to be debated.

The management of Barcelona-based Almirall pharmaceutical multinational and trade unions have signed an agreement on Monday, reducing the initially planned number of laid-off employees from 250 to 180. The document, which has mostly been ratified in production and research centres in Greater Barcelona as well as by the marketing network, also provides specific compensations for the workers aged 55 years and over, and the maximum compensations set by the law for the rest of the laid-off staff. According to the General Workers Union (UGT), 30% of the laid-off employees will correspond to voluntary redundancies, which will be proportionally distributed among the different groups of workers.

The Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, said that Spain could “consider” the admission of an independent Scotland within the EU. In a front-page article published this Monday in the Financial Times, Margallo argued that if the Scottish people gained independence through a “legal” process, Spain would not interfere. However, the Minister warned that the Scots would have to “join the waiting line and ask for admission” to enter the EU. The article underlined that “Margallo’s nuanced stance towards Scotland stood in marked contrast to his uncompromising rhetoric on Catalonia”, “two fundamentally different” cases according to him. The President of the Catalan People’s Party – Margallo’s party - reacted to the interview and stated that his words had been misinterpreted: Spain would assess Scotland’s admission but would not approve it.

The apocalyptic blockbuster Los Últimos Días (‘The Last Days’) and the intense quasi-documentary La Plaga (‘The Plague’) took home top honours at the Catalan film industry awards, which took place in Barcelona on Sunday evening. The decision by the workers from the Catalan Public Television Broadcaster not to air the ceremony was present throughout with many personalities from the world of cinema displaying their support for the protesters. The President of the Catalan Film Academy, Isona Passola, condemned this decision in her address. Contemporary drama Tots Volem el Millor per a Ella (‘Puzzlement’) was also recognised in the gala, picking up both Best Leading Actress for Nora Navas and Best Supporting Actress for Clara Segura, while big nominees Fill de Cain (‘Son of Cain’) and Grand Piano went home empty-handed.

Catalonia’s High Court has interpreted the last sentence of the Spanish Supreme Court and forces the Catalan Government to offer “at least” 25% of the mandatory school curricula in Spanish in the schools where pupils ask for it. A dozen of parents had complained in the last few years, filing several appeals and stating they wanted their children to be taught in Spanish in Catalonia’s public schools. The Catalan school model is based on the linguistic immersion principle and almost all the subjects are taught in Catalan except Spanish which is taught as a language. However, the system includes many flexibility measures for new-comers and individualised attention in Spanish. The Spanish Supreme Court considered this was insufficient and sentenced that a class had to be taught in Spanish if the family of a single pupil asked for it and even if the other children’s families had not requested it.