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The production of the new Seat León, the brand’s flagship model, guarantees 1,600 direct jobs and 6,000 indirect ones in the supply industries. The car manufacturing company, owned by Volkswagen, has its only plant in Martorell, Greater Barcelona. The company has great expectations of the new Seat León, which will be distributed worldwide from Catalonia. The new car model is the milestone of Seat’s commercial and strategic plan for this year, with the objective of becoming profitable again. It will be sold in three different versions: a five-door and a three-door model, and a station wagon car.

The Catalan Government has confirmed that Ryanair will route its flights through Reus Airport, next to Tarragona and the Costa Daurada, during the winter season. It will link the Catalan airport with 7 European destinations, with a frequency of 21 rotations per week. It is expected that 100,000 passengers will be transported. Last year, the Irish low-cost airline cancelled all its flights operated through Reus in winter time and was only present during the summer season.

The German Chancellor is “impressed” with Spain’s reforms. According to Angela Merkel, the reforms are headed “in the right direction”, they need to be pursued “at all government levels” and they will need “time to show their results”, “as it happened in Germany ten years ago” with their structural reforms. Angela Merkel met with the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in Madrid, the day the European Central Bank announced it was buying sovereign bonds. Merkel stated that reforms have to continue “at all government levels”. The Chancellor also defended the European Union as a project guaranteeing peace and prosperity, and the Euro as “our common currency”.

17 Catalan companies and institutions will be represented at the biennial Internationale Tanzmesse nrw Düsseldorf in Germany from August 29th to September 1st. Also, two Catalan companies will be performing at the event, designed as an international platform for dance professionals to showcase their work and as a networking event for the contemporary dance sector.

Tito Vilanova will make his debut as Barça head coach in Germany. Barça have been invited to play in the Bundesliga club’s 125th anniversary match. After Hamburg, the next destination for Barça and Tito Vilanova will be a friendly in Morocco on July 28th

Virtual desks, automatic cash points, a new packaging line or consulting services on innovation are some of the Catalan products displayed at CeBIT. This is the Europe’s biggest trade fair on digital industry. It is being held in Hannover from March 6th to March 10th.

The total amount of sales of the Catalan wine fell by 2.14% last year, due to poor results in the domestic market. The record of 152 million cava bottles sold abroad does not compensate for the fall at home.

Catalan actors such as Jordi Bosch, Marta Marco and Jordi Boixaderas will go on stage to represent a “poem which treats and mistreats the spectator”. It tells the story of a businessman who wants to monopolize the world and ends up by taking other businesses to bankruptcy.

FC Barcelona have given their fans the perfect Valentine’s Day gift – a convincing win away to Bayer Leverkusen at the Champions League that puts them well on course for a place in the quarter finals. Alexis (2) and Messi scored the goals for Barça.

Theatre director Calixto Bieito, who has developed his career in Catalonia, presented a new play in Freiburg based on the masterpiece‘The great theatre of the world’, by Calderón de la Barca, one of Spain’s best theatrical writers from the 17th century. The show is the first spectacle from the Barcelona International Theatre project, promoted by the production company Focus. The show follows the original work from Bieito’s previous production.

The programme will be trialled at CaixaBank cash machines to analyse the effectiveness of user interface and help to develop a long term option to help the disabled overcome barriers.

Despite the scientific analysis that proves the innocence of Spanish field products, the demand for vegetables and fruit, not only cucumbers, has harshly hit agriculture throughout Spain. Catalan farmers are also heavily affected, as well as fresh food shopkeepers. Farmers have to drop prices or even destroy the product as demand has plummeted, especially regarding exports. Thousands of tones of oranges are in stock in the Delta de l’Ebre and may rot if demand does not recover soon.

According to the new German Chamber of Commerce Managing Director in Spain, the Central European country could promise young Catalans not only training and competitive salaries but also job stability. He also explains which are the obstacles in his view that stop German investments in Spain and Catalonia.

Marc, Catalan, and Elke, German, reside together in Berlin with their daughter Matilda. This year they will spend their first Christmas in Catalonia.

Diverse Catalan singers, musicians and directors performed in Leipzig, Hamburg, Cologne and Weimar on Thursday. Tenor singer Josep Carreras teamed up with Andrea Bocelli and David Garret to raise funds and awareness for the fight against leukaemia in Leipzig. Jordi Savall played Jean-Philippe Rameau in Cologne and Montserrat Caballé sung in Hamburg.