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The Catalan Government approved decrees on Tuesday for the creation of three new delegations abroad, in the Holy See, Portugal and Morocco. TheMinister of the Presidency, Francesc Homs, said the purpose of opening these delegations is to facilitate bilateral relations and defend the social and economic interests of Catalonia abroad. With these new delegations, which are included in the Foreign Action Strategic Plan 2015-2018, the Government of Catalonia will have an international network of 10 offices abroad.

Tensions over the issue of independence between the two parties forming the CiU coalition have caused a government crisis in Catalonia. Three ministers from the Christian-Democrat party UDC, the smaller party within the CiU, have left government after their allies of 37 years, CDC, presented them with an “ultimatum”. The governing council of UDC decided on Wednesday, with 16 votes in favour, 10 against and 2 abstentions, that Vice-president Joana Ortega, Minister of Agriculture Josep Maria Pelegrí and Minister of Home Affairs Ramon Espadaler, who is also the secretary general of UDC, should quit Artur Mas’ government. UDC voted on Sunday by a slim majority in favour of an ambiguous stance on the issue of independence, in which the party supported the right to self-determination but fell short of stating whether or not Catalonia should actually vote ‘yes’ to full independence from Spain. Following the result, the Liberal party CDC, led by Mas, urged their coalition partners to state clearly whether or not they are for independence. Elections to the Catalan Parliament are expected to be held on the 27 of September, and may be considered a plebiscite on independence. Tensions between CDC and UDC over the reluctance of the latter to clearly support independence make it unlikely that they will run together, although UDC has said it will still provide parliamentary support to CDC in the coming months and won’t split the coalition at local level.

The centre-right pro-Catalan State two-party coalition CiU, which runs the Catalan Government, may be on the verge of splitting up after three-and-a-half decades, and having run together in all the elections. The smaller force within the CiU, the Christian-Democrat party UDC, is going through serious internal tension over Catalonia's independence debate. The party leadership does not support independence, while a significant part of its members does. Added to this, the larger force within the CiU, the Liberal party CDC, is now the main party within the pro-independence camp. However, UDC does not have an official stance on independence and has been avoiding the issue so far, supporting Catalonia's right to self-determination, the organisation of a referendum on this issue and the creation of a Catalan State with full sovereignty, but without specifying its stance on the crucial point: whether this state would be fully independent or would be confederated with Spain. On Sunday, the party held an internal consultation on the party's role in the self-determination process. The vote became a plebiscite on the UDC's leadership. 51% of the members supported the leadership's approach and 46% voted against it.

"Between 2015 and 2016 the Catalan Government will open new Trade & Investment offices in Belgrade, Tehran, Accra, Tel Aviv and Lima and enlarge its San Francisco-based one", Catalan Business Minister, Felip Puig, announced on Monday. Similarly, the Catalan Executive recently launched a new 'technological antenna' in Boston (Massachusetts) and will soon do the same in Panama, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Senegal and Angola, enlarging its network of business promotion offices abroad. The Minister said that in 2014, Catalan companies exported more than 51% of the Catalan Gross Domestic Product and the Executive is set on further enhancing their internationalisation. "Official data seem to confirm that companies with a stronger global presence suffered the economic crisis less and the Government wants to support them", he concluded.

The President of the Catalan government, Artur Mas, has told parties favouring the right to self-determination on Thursday to "enhance" the plebiscitary character of the 27-S elections after the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) ruled the Catalan government's preparations for the 9-N election unconstitutional. The 9-N ballot asked voters whether Catalonia should be independent. According to Mas, the judgment evidences that the Constitution has become a "dead end" and that there is no other route left except for a plebiscitary vote. He warned that the TC cannot "override or erase" the vote of 2.3 million people on 9-N.

In times of economic crisis, the Mariano Rajoy-led Spanish Government has been making recentralisation a main driver of its political agenda, using the economic recovery as the reason for passing the reforms. An additional step in this direction was taken on Monday with a new regulation forcing Spanish Autonomous Communities to seek permission from the Spanish Ministry of Finance before granting loans and guarantees to private companies located in their territories. From now on, Madrid's permission will be conditional upon the applicant's compliance with deficit targets. The new regulation substantially curbs the Autonomies' powers to shape their industrial policies, following a reform passed in May that modifies both the Organic Law for Financing the Autonomous Communities and the Organic Law on Budgetary Stability and Financial Sustainability.

Veremonte has walked out on the BCN World project, the largest holiday resort in Europe based in the Costa Daurada, near Tarragona, as first announced by the Catalan Business Minister, Felip Puig, on Thursday and later confirmed by the company itself. However, Puig has assured that this will not impede the project's continuation as companies such as Melco, Hard Rock, Grup Peralada and Value Retail remain committed to it. Veremonte did not provide any further details about its decision. The investment company was initially leading the initiative and had reached an agreement with La Caixa bank to buy 500 hectares of land in 2012. However, it missed the final deadline last December to do so and the Catalan Government had to jump in to guarantee the project's continuation, reaching an agreement with La Caixa for the land. However, Veremonte was still linked to the initiative through the casino licences' tender, which it bidding for in partnership with Hard Rock and Melco.

The leadership of the Christian-Democrat party UDC supports Catalonia's self-determination but it is against full independence; it supports the creation of a Catalan State with greater powers than it currently has while remaining within Spain, which should embrace its plurinational nature and become a confederal country. However, an important part of UDC's base does support independence and has been trying to force an open debate and consultation on it within the party, in order to set the official party stance on this issue. Currently, the leadership's vision represents UDC's traditional stance on this issue, but the party does not have an official stance on independence yet. This situation has provoked tensions within the small party but also with their allies for the last three-and-a-half decades, the Liberal party CDC, which is the largest force within the two-party coalition CiU that currently runs the Catalan Government. UDC announced an internal consultation on 14 June to fix the party's definitive stance on this debate. However, the leadership has presented a question that avoids independence; a formulation that has created quite some controversy among UDC members.

Christy Burke says Irish people “understand the position, the views and the feelings of the Catalan people” because they “know what it was like to be treated as second-class citizens”. The Lord Mayor of Dublin, who is an independent councillor but was formerly a member of Sinn Féin, said that Ireland “would assist in whatever way possible” in order to help Catalan leaders achieve “an adequate, decent, independent by self-determination, country to live in”. Burke said this during an interview with ACN after meeting a delegation from the Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia and the Catalan Government.

The Catalan Government has sent another warning message about its lack of liquidity, which depends on the Spanish Executive’s regular transfers since most taxes are collected by Madrid-based services. The Catalan Minister for the Presidency, Francesc Homs, accused the Spanish Government of "deliberate asphyxia" and asked the rest of the Catalan parties to "pool together" to denounce the situation. According to Homs, such financial asphyxia will affect everything except salaries. All Catalan Government departments will be affected and their payments to service providers will be delayed. The Catalan Finance Minister, Andreu Mas-Colell, already warned about this financial asphyxia on previous occasions. In the coming days, Mas-Colell will meet with the rest of the parties to discuss the situation. However, the Spanish Finance Ministry rejects the accusation and has stated that it has made all the pending transfers.

The municipal elections in Catalonia have resulted in five major highlights. First of all, the overall victory of left-wing parties, in a context of a gradual economic recovery after 7 years of economic crisis, with high unemployment levels, lower salaries and corruption scandals. However, the centre-right pro-Catalan State coalition CiU is still the vost voted party throughout Catalonia, but losing support. Secondly, parties clearly supporting Catalonia's self-determination process significantly increase their representation and electoral support, while those opposing Catalonia's self-determination lose both representatives and votes across the board. Thirdly, there has been a major change in the Catalan capital's City Council, with alternative-left and green coalition Barcelona en Comú overtaking the CiU by a close margin, which runs the Catalan Government. Four, except for Barcelona, the governing parties in the main Catalan town halls resist, although almost all of them have their support reduced. Finally, the main traditional parties register significant loss of support while secondary parties improve their results and enter many city councils for the first time. Two parties enter a number of town halls for the first time: anti-Catalan nationalism party Ciutadans (C's) and radical independence and alternative left party CUP.

The Spanish Government gave the green light on Friday for the bill for the ‘Law on National Security’, amid criticism from Catalan political parties. The new text foresees the Spanish Government taking control of police corps run by the Autonomous Community executives, such as the Catalan Government’s Mossos d’Esquadra, and the local police run by municipalities. This shift of powers would happen if a State of Emergency was to be declared in a particular area due to a natural disaster or in order “to defend Spain” or its “Constitutional values”. Thus, PM Mariano Rajoy is passing a law that would allow the Spanish Government to take control of the Catalan Police if the independence process was to go too far for Madrid’s liking. Besides this, the new bill also establishes powers in some important areas such as cyber security, maritime safety and financial security, among others.

Veremonte has added additional uncertainty to the future of the BCN World project, the largest holiday resort in Europe based in the Costa Daurada, near Tarragona. After a $6 billion investment, it will include – among other facilities – 6 mega-casino hotels, amusement parks and shopping malls. Veremonte – which was initially leading the project – announced that it could leave, depending on how the Catalan Government will develop the final Urban Plan and how it will set the conditions for the second phase of the casino licences' tender. In 2012, Veremonte had already reached an agreement with La Caixa bank to buy 500 hectares of the land. However, the company missed the first deadline and did not meet the second one (last December) to do so, arguing that the final Urban Plan had not yet been approved. The Catalan Government then jumped in and reached an agreement with La Caixa for the rights to buy the land and guarantee the project's continuation. Veremonte still continues to be linked to the project through the casino licence tender, for which it is running with Hard Rock and Melco.

There has been railway chaos throughout Catalonia due to a major failure in the control centre of the IT system of the network run by Adif and operated by Renfe, two public companies both owned and managed by the Spanish Government. This incident is to be added to a long list of problems in this network during the last decade due to a lack of investment by the Spanish Government. All the short- and medium-distance trains in Catalonia using Adif's network stopped completely between 6.30 am and 7.45 am, affecting some 200 trains and 80,000 people at the start of rush hour. Trains started to work again with more than a 1 hour delay and took the entire morning to gradually recover the accumulated delay, but parallel services have also been affected, such as the High-Speed network, where a train was stuck for 2 hours in a tunnel.  The Catalan Government considers the situation "unacceptable" and demands immediate investment, or it will request the transfer of the infrastructure.

The Catalan Government and the regional governments of Sicily and Provence are promoting a manifesto requesting the European Union to meet the challenge of the humanitarian crisis taking place at the Mediterranean Sea. ‘We are all Mediterranean’ aims to strengthen the commitment at regional level to face and solve this crisis, since the EU and the Member State governments “are not up to the challenge”. In addition, the Catalan Government also confirmed the organisation of a summit of Mediterranean regions to be held in July in Barcelona “to work together and see in which way the regions can give a more comprehensive answer” to the drama suffered by so many refugees crossing the sea on fragile boats. In Strasbourg, the Vice President of the Catalan Government, Joana Ortega, invited the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, as well as those of Sicily, Provence-Alps-Cote d’Azur and Western Greece, Rosario Crocetta, Michel Vauzelle and Apostolos Katsifaras, and Lampedusa’s Mayor, Giusi Nicolini, to attend the summit.