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An independent Catalonia would benefit from transition measures that would guarantee the continuity of European Union agreements, thus staying within the Schengen Area and the Euro Zone. This is the most likely scenario in the event of independence, according to the Catalan Government's Advisory Council for the National Transition (CATN), which is a body formed of independent and prestigious academics. The CATN is issuing a series of reports on different aspects related to a hypothetical independent Catalan state. This expert group emphasises that there is "no legal basis" to conclude that Catalonia would be automatically expelled from the EU the moment it became independent, or to state that it would automatically join the Union as a new Member State. There is no provision in the Treaties and there are no precedents. The report concludes that Catalonia's EU membership will be decided in a negotiation process where political and economic interests will be at play.

The Spanish Deputy Prime Minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, has asked the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, to abandon his demands to organise a self-determination vote in order to start a dialogue. She was answering Mas' request to PM Mariano Rajoy "to set a day and time" to start talking. Sáenz de Santamaría stated "there was already a day and a time, which was last Tuesday at 4 pm", when the Spanish Parliament rejected the Catalan Parliament's petition to exceptionally transfer the power to organise a non-binding referendum in Catalonia. In addition, the Spanish Deputy Prime Minister referred to Mas's statement that, if a referendum or a consultation vote on Catalonia's independence from Spain is banned, he might call for plebiscite elections. De Santamaría warned that "a referendum cannot be held whatever the formula". On top of this, she rejected a Constitution reform once again "because there is no consensus".

The Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) – which runs the Catalan Government – and the opposition Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) - which does not support the self-determination vote – have reached an agreement on the new legal framework to develop the macro-resort BCN World. This project, promoted by Veremonte and located in Salou (Costa Daurada), has already announced some of its international partners, but in order to attract the rest of the investors needed and start construction, the legal framework on gambling and the area’s town planning had to be upgraded. After months of talks, the CiU has finally closed a deal with the PSC, instead of doing it with the Left Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC), with whom it is promoting the self-determination agenda. The $6-billion BCN World will create some 17,000 jobs and will have mega-casinos, hotels, luxury shops, conference centres and beach clubs, among other things.

The Spanish government will offer a better fiscal arrangement for Catalonia but will refuse to authorise a referendum on independence. The Spanish parties are going to reject the Catalan government petition for a consultation during a debate on the 8th of April in the Spanish Congress. But the conservative PP will try to engage in conversations with the Catalan government about a new fiscal pact, hoping this offer could stop the “crazy environment” of tensions between Catalonia and Spain, PP sources confirmed to the CNA. The Catalan Government spokesman, Francesc Homs, said the referendum “cannot be swapped” for money and urged the Spanish government to put any offer to a ballot box test.

The far right trade union Manos Limpias has filed a complaint against the citizen association that organised the two massive independence demonstrations on the 11^th September 2012 and 2013: the National Assembly of Catalonia (ANC). On Monday evening the Spanish nationalist organisation accused the ANC of fostering "insurrection" for having issued a road map proposing to declare independence on the 23^rd April 2015 if the Spanish Government did not allow a self-determination vote. Furthermore, in February the extreme-right group had filed a first complaint against the Catalan President, Artur Mas, for "sedition" and "rebellion". On Tuesday, after a preliminary analysis, Catalonia's Supreme Court (TSJC) dismissed the complaint, emphasising the political nature of Mas' statements and actions. Manos Limpias announced that it will appeal the decision, saying that the TSJC is "contaminated" by Catalan nationalism.

The Spanish Finance Minister, Cristóbal Montoro, announced on Friday that the publication of the so-called fiscal balances will be delayed until June, after he had promised to issue them by last December and by the current month of March. Montoro changed the calculation method in January, as the figures were used to support Catalonia's independence from Spain. Now, the new delay is "to improve" the report. This document shows how much money Catalan citizens and companies pay to the public authorities and how much returns to them through services, infrastructure and funds. A wide majority of the Catalan society has been complaining for decades that their contribution to finance services, infrastructure and funds in other parts of Spain is too excessive and they have asked for reducing such inter-territorial money transfers. Studies show that Catalans have been paying each year an average of 8% of Catalonia's GDP between 1986 and 2010, which represents 200% of Catalonia's total GDP.

On Wednesday, the parties supporting the petitions to transfer to the Catalan Government the powers to organise referendums, using Article 150.2 of the Constitution, welcomed the Spanish Parliament's decision to fix the debate as early as possible, particularly before the summer break. The Catalan Parliament had approved a motion urging the Spanish Government for such a transfer in order to organise a self-determination vote. However, the Spanish Parliament might have scheduled the corresponding parliamentary debate in September or October. For this reason, the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU), the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC) and the Catalan Green Socialist Party (ICV) filed their own petitions using their MPs in Madrid in order to speed up the debate. Finally, the Spanish Parliament's Board, controlled by the People's Party (PP), decided to group all the petitions and to hold a single debate on the issue in April.

From April 2014, thanks to an agreement signed with the Institut Ramon Llull (IRL), the public body in charge of promoting Catalan culture abroad, the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS) will offer a comprehensive course dedicated to the Catalan language and culture. The TUFS, one of the most prestigious institutions for language studies in Japan, will be the second university in the country to provide such training after the Hosei University - also in Tokyo - implemented a similar course in 2010. In the coming months, the TUFS will also host several events to strengthen the bonds between Catalonia and Japan, notably the symposium ‘Facts and fiction about independence, a plural view on Catalonia’.

The Catalan President said that declaring independence unilaterally “is not the ideal scenario; neither the best nor the one that we want” but nonetheless refused to rule this option out. According to Mas, such a possibility should be considered if an agreement with Madrid for a referendum proves to be impossible and he is forced to call an early plebiscite-style election. “There is no way back”, said the President in a debate with citizens organised by the newspaper ‘El Periódico’. The leader of the opposition, Oriol Junqueras, who is an ally to Mas in the push for a self-determination vote, said that “the best” option is a referendum and therefore politicians should “not speculate with other scenarios”. However, he agreed with Mas in not ruling out a unilateral declaration in case negotiations with Spain were impossible. The co-leader of the Greens, Dolors Camats, said Catalans “do not understand” why Mas mentioned a unilateral declaration as this seems to suggest he does not longer believe a referendum or consultation is possible. The leader of the PP in Catalonia, Alicia Sánchez Camacho said Mas had “gone mad” while the socialists stated that considering a unilateral declaration was “a serious mistake”.

In its editorial on Wednesday, the prestigious ‘The New York Times’ has dissociated the current situation in Crimea and its secession from Ukraine from the independence processes in Catalonia, Scotland and Quebec. The editorial article, which demands European Union countries to impose economic sanctions on Vladimir Putin's Russia, states that the Catalans, Scots and Quebecers “have shown there are legitimate ways to raise” the secession issue. The American newspaper criticized Crimea for its “phony referendum” with a “foreordained” outcome, organised in an express way just as Russian soldiers were being deployed in the peninsula. The newspaper admits secession is a “difficult” matter but recalled that the invasion of Crimea is “illegal”, calling on the international community to react to Putin’s actions.

Answering a question about dialogue and democracy regarding Catalonia and Spain, the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy talked about Crimea, where there is a pre-war situation. On Tuesday before the Spanish Senate, Rajoy has once again closed the door to any talks with the Catalan Government to hold a legal and agreed consultation vote, similar to the one scheduled in Scotland. Instead, Spain's PM preferred to use as an example the current situation in Crimea, where the regional parliament has declared independence and organised within 10 days a ratification referendum while pro-Russian troops have occupied the peninsula and a war with the Ukrainian Army could start at any moment. Rajoy highlighted that the international community has appealed to the territorial integrity of states in this case. He was answering a question from Josep Lluís Cleries, Senator of the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU), which runs the Catalan Government.  Cleries asked him "to be brave" and "talk in depth" with the Catalan President.

Súmate, an organisation mostly formed of people of Spanish origin living in Catalonia who support independence from Spain, presented on Monday evening its views during a round-table at the Friends of the UNESCO headquarters in Madrid. The organisation, described as plural, independent and non-partisan by its members has entitled its intervention ‘Escucha España. Los catalanes quieren votar’ (Listen Spain! Catalans want to vote). For its President, Eduardo Reyes, the main objective is to encourage a democratic debate on the ongoing process in Catalonia, since for now “all the news that is reaching Spain about Catalonia is false”. Reyes believes that the Spanish institutions are “creating hatred” and said that he had decided to go to Madrid to explain that “there is no social fracture” in Catalonia. Not a single Madrid-based printed media talked about the event.

The Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, stated that a unilateral declaration of independence would condemn Catalonia "to roam across space" and that it would be "excluded from the European Union for the centuries of the centuries". García-Margallo, who is one of the most vocal members of the Spanish Executive against Catalonia's independence, stated that such a scenario is "a high risk operation". He criticised the politicians supporting independence, who "put at risk a population that is essentially European", which goes against the will of a majority of Catalans "who want to be part of the European area". "Secession is extremely harmful for Spain but particularly harmful for Catalonia", he insisted. On the same day, the Candidate of the Greens to chair the European Commission, German Ska Keller, stated she was supporting Catalonia's right to self-determination.

The President of the employer’s association Cercle Català de Negocis (CCN), Albert Pont, and the Coordinator of the economic division of the Catalan National Assembly for independence (ANC), David Ros, presented on Monday a manifesto defending the economic viability of a Catalan State. The heads of the ANC and the CCN have called on professionals in the economic sphere to sign the document since independence “is viable, and from an economic point of view, desirable”. Both Pont and Ros have also emphasised that the self-determination process is not harming the Catalan economy, quite the contrary, as revealed by the latest figures for exports and foreign investments.

The well-known former member of the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) Ernest Maragall, who quit the organisation in October 2012 because of its lack of commitment to Catalonia’s self-determination, joins the candidate list of the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC) for the next European Parliament Elections to run in second place. Ernest Maragall has been one of the most prominent members of the PSC, occupying key positions in Barcelona Town Hall and the Catalan Government over three decades. He formed a political tandem with his brother Pasqual Maragall, who was President of Catalonia between 2003 and 2006 and led the urban transformation of Barcelona as the city Mayor between 1982 and 1997. In fact, Catalan politics during the last 3 decades cannot be understood without the Maragall brothers, who were also founding members of the PSC back in 1977.