catalan way

The Italian ferry company has built a 63,000 square metre terminal at the Costa dock, with an investment of €20 million and a capacity of 3,600 passengers per day. The new terminal will allow the city of Barcelona to gain a new urban area, since the space accessing and surrounding the terminal will be integrated into the city for the first time. Urban planning work will be concluded by the end of the year, announced the Mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Trias. The terminal has restaurants, bars, shops and free Wi-fi, and will allow the boarding of passengers and goods.

On Saturday evening, 90,000 people gathered in FC Barcelona Camp Nou stadium to attend a concert backing Catalonia’s right to self-determination. The event, organised by a civil society entity – Òmnium Cultural – and without public funding, called for a self-determination referendum in 2014. The two largest political parties in Catalonia, which share a parliamentary stability pact, stated that a specific date for a self-determination vote should be fixed after December 2013. In addition, they insisted that the Catalan President will send a letter to the Spanish Prime Minister in July asking for this vote to be organised. However, in Madrid, the reactions have been almost non-existent. The Spanish Justice Minister insisted that a referendum would be illegal since sovereignty is rooted into the Spanish people as a whole.

The Catalan Ombudsman, Rafael Ribó, accused the Spanish Government of trying “to manipulate” data in its report last week, in order to push forward a recentralisation reform, which “goes against the self-government principle”. Ribó explained that the Spanish Ombudsman undertook 33,849 actions in 2012, which means each action cost an average of €428. In addition, it refused to accept 20,164 complaints. Meanwhile, the Catalan Ombudsman undertook 25,073 actions, with a cost of €279 each. The Catalan institution only rejected 267 complaints. Regarding resolutions and recommendations, the Spanish Ombudsman issued 548 while the Catalan body issued 3,635. This means that each resolution by the Spanish body cost €26,447 while the Catalan’s cost €1,925, which is 13.75 times less.

The Intermediterranean Commission of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe organised its annual Plenary Assembly in Barcelona, since Catalonia currently holds the organisation’s presidency. This organisation brings together 45 regional governments from 9 different Mediterranean countries. For the first time, the Union for the Mediterranean – which brings the 27 European Union Member States and 16 countries from the Northern Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans together – signs a cooperation agreement with an organisation of regional governments. At the signing ceremony, political leaders asked the European Union to pay more attention to the South, as once it did with Eastern Europe.

The participants to the so-called National Alliance for the Self-Determination Right have met for the first time, bringing together almost 50 entities, including political parties, business associations, trade unions, social organisations and cultural institutions. This transversal initiative gathering together a wide part of Catalan society aims to reach an internal consensus on how to proceed in order to allow Catalans to vote on their collective future. Attendees agreed to ask the former President of the Catalan Parliament, Joan Rigol, to draft a text expressing the “common denominators” of the participants. In addition, the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, will send a letter to the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, making a formal petition for the organisation of a self-determination vote in Catalonia.

The Catalan Government will continue to occupy the facilities as a tenant, annually paying €16.2 million in rent over the next 20 years. The decision to sell Catalan Government properties had been taken to ease the difficult financial situation and obtain liquidity. The initiative is part of the austerity measures adopted to reduce the public deficit and increase revenue. Taking this last sale into account, the Catalan Government will have sold 17 properties for a total of €266 million since 2012. The Catalan Minister for the Presidency, Francesc Homs, emphasised that the revenue generated by these sales will allow the Government to undertake fewer budget cuts.

The ‘Pau Casals VIP lounge’ at Barcelona's Airport Terminal 1 offers the opportunity to taste between three or six Priorat (Tarragona) DO wines. Every Thursday afternoon in May, June and July, VIP travellers who leave or stop over in Barcelona are able to do this tasting for free. In 30 minute sessions, they can taste three different kinds of wine from the wineries ‘Clos Mogador’, ‘Capafons-Ossó’, ‘Mas d’en Gil’, ‘Scala Dei’, ‘Mas Doix’ and ‘Trossos del Priorat’.

In a globalised world, immigration is a crucial factor to understanding how societies are organised. But there are different kinds of immigration. The most common immigrants are those who come to look for work. They are mostly workers from developing countries that are in a situation of poverty, but others come to do unusual jobs, in which they may earn big money and can leave their mark on local people. Moses Ehambe (Arlington, Texas, 1986) and Troy Devries (Mount Vernon, Washington, 1982) are basketball players for Fiact Joventut de Badalona and La Bruixa d’Or Manresa. Despite being foreigners, they prove that sport stars can adapt to the Catalan way of life.

Not many Catalan writers present the complexity and multiple facets that Salvador Espriu can offer. An intellectual committed to his nation and language, Espriu (1913-1985) was one of the greatest writers of his time. He left an extensive literary legacy, characterised by his deep words and reflections concerning death, pain and personal identity. His poems have a foundation in Cabalism and Jewish traditions, which is what makes his work so universal and what probably lends him a huge international recognition, even by writing in a minority language. This year has been called ‘Any Espriu’ (Espriu Year) in order to celebrate the centenary of his birth.

On Friday, the Spanish Government approved a €37.7 billion reform of Spain’s public sector which fosters the elimination of Autonomous Community bodies considered to be “redundant”. Instead of directly obliging the Autonomous Communities to eliminate them – which might be very tricky legally speaking, the Spanish Executive will link their suppression to the deficit targets allowed to the regional governments and the funds provided. However, in the case of Catalonia, most of the bodies included in the reform are recognised by Catalonia’s main law, approved in 2006 by the Spanish Parliament and through a binding referendum. The Catalan Government and most of the political parties are accusing the Spanish Executive of trying to recentralise Spain. In addition, the Catalan President said that unfortunately Madrid “teaches lessons” but “does not do its homework” and eliminates Ministries without competences.

According to an opinion poll from the Catalan Polling Centre (CEO), the Catalan political landscape would change, since the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC) would would become the largest force in the Catalan Parliament after doubling the number of its MPs compared to the electoral results from last November. Meanwhile, the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU), which has been running the Catalan Government since 2010, would continue to lose support. However, parties supporting Catalonia’s independence increase their total support while the number of those defending Spain’s unity drops. The CEO thinks the data show that over the last 9 months, the support for independence remains “stable” in a hypothetical referendum, ranging between 54% and 57%. However, those opposing independence grew from 20.7% to 23.4%, while the number of undecided citizens decreased to 15%.

Catalan companies exported goods and services worth €5.05 billion in April, which represents a 13.4% growth compared to the same month of 2012. In the first four months of 2013, Catalonia exported €19.17 billion, a 1% increase compared to the same period of the previous year. Looking at figures for the whole of Spain, exports reached €29.40 billion in April, an 18.6% increase compared to figures from April 2012. Regarding the volume of exports reached in the first four months of 2013, Spain exported 76.98 billion, a 7.5% increase compared to the same period last year. The chemical sector led Catalan exports, followed by capital goods and cars.

The Wealth Transfer Tax, which is levied on sales of second-hand housing units and any other used real estate, will be raised from 8% to 10% as from the 1st of August. The Catalan Government expects to earn an additional €50 million in 2013 and €150 million in 2014. The Catalan Finance Minister, Andreu Mas-Colell, argued that the rise in the tax rate is equivalent to the VAT charged on sales of new housing units and that both taxes should be “parallel”. He also added that other Autonomous Communities had previously raised this tax to similar levels.

The ice melting from the mountain tops and the heavy rain episodes of the last 24 hours have caused flooding of the Garonne, Noguera Pallaresa, Noguera de Cardós and other rivers in the mountain counties of the Val d’Aran, Pallars Sobirà, Alta Ribagorça and north of Pallars Jussà. More than 300 people have been evacuated from their homes in flooded or at risk areas. No victims or missing people have been reported, but material damage is considerable. Bridges have been swallowed by the waters and some roads have partially collapsed since the land beneath them has been swept away by the flood. Road access to the Val d’Aran County was closed as a precaution. Rain is expected to continue during the night and the reservoirs are overflowing because they have reached their maximum capacity.

Poor road conditions and a high rate of traffic accidents have led the Catalan Government to approve a strict circulation restriction for four axle lorries throughout 90 kilometers (56 miles) of the N-II, a road linking Madrid with Barcelona and the French border, which has only one lane per direction. Although the measure is of temporary character, it has outraged roadside shopkeepers and lorry drivers, but neighbors from towns close to the highly-frequented road totally support it. According to the Catalan Ministry for Public Works, now is the moment for the widening project of the road drawn up by the Spanish Government in 1995 to be restarted after years of delay due to a lack of funding in order to improve road conditions for the main entrance road to Spain from France.