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PEN International has presented at the Catalan Government’s Palace in Barcelona the Girona Manifesto on Linguistic Rights. Catalonia’s President regretted that the Catalan language still “suffers from the intolerance or belligerence of some bodies of the [Spanish] State”. The manifesto, which had its origins in the World Conference on Linguistic Rights held in Girona in 1996, aims to defend linguistic diversity throughout the world. The Manifesto has already been approved by the PEN General Assembly. The 10 point document has already been translated into 18 languages.

Following the advice of the Catalan Council for Constitutional Guarantees (CGE), the Catalan Executive will appeal the Spanish Government’s decree to save €7 billion in healthcare this year. However, it will continue implementing the decree until a judicial decision is made. According to the CGE, the decree violates 3 Spanish Constitution articles and 3 others from the Catalan Statute of Autonomy. The decree does not guarantee equality among all citizens, since it limits access to public healthcare. In addition, it invades the Catalan Government’s powers. Left-wing Catalan parties were the first to ask for CGE’s opinion, since they consider the new decree violates basic social rights.

The Spanish Finance Minister, Cristóbal Montoro, presented the budget data from January to March 2012. The Autonomous Community Governments together had a 0% deficit in this period. Among them, Catalonia’s had a 0.45% budget surplus, while in the same period of 2011 it had a 0.65% deficit. Montoro emphasised that the data shows “the big effort” the Autonomies are making.

After 13 years, the Constitutional Court has denied the appeal presented by the Spanish Government in 1999 against a Catalan Parliament Law that allowed the Catalan sports federation to compete internationally. However, the Court states that Catalan teams cannot compete “in sports where no Spanish federation exists”. According to the Catalan Government, this sentence is “a first step” on the road to the international recognition of “all sports federations”. In addition, the Platform for Catalan said that Spanish legislation does not apply internationally and that International Federations are private organisations; it is thus their decision, as the CAS confirmed in 2008. They also mentioned the case of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The President of the Catalan Government has organised a summit with all the parties at the Catalan Parliament to discuss a new fiscal scheme for Catalonia. According to official studies, Catalonia gives 8.5% of its GDP each year to pay for investments and services in the rest of Spain, an amount that represents more than €17 billion per year. Some parties state that the current model is unsustainable for Catalonia and represents a plundering of its finances. Others have a more moderate opinion. Nonetheless, all political parties in Catalonia now believe that this amount is excessive and that the fiscal scheme between Catalonia and the rest of Spain should be reviewed. However, they significantly disagree on the formula and the timing.

The Catalan Government’s finances corresponding to the first four months of 2012 showed a €535 million budget surplus. Spending has been reduced by €240 million in comparison to the same period last year, when the Catalan Government’s budget had a deficit of €1.13 billion. The budget surplus is mostly due to the transfers made by the Spanish Government, which partially correspond to payments from 2010.

Teachers, administrative staff, students and parents have protested against budget cuts by the Spanish and Catalan Governments affecting primary, secondary and university education. The protest was organised throughout Spain. In Barcelona, 25,000 people according to the police and 150,000 people according to the organisers demonstrated through the city centre. Protests were also organised in other Catalan cities, such as Girona, Lleida and Tarragona.

The Catalan Government will adjust its budget by €4.295 billion in 2012, through spend cuts of €2.680 billion and increasing revenue by €1.615 billion. With this plan, the Catalan Government will meet the 1.5% deficit target. The Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy (CPFF), which brings together the Spanish Government and the 17 Autonomies, has approved Catalonia’s budget adjustment plan for 2012-2014. The Spanish Government would pay part of the money owed, but not all of it. The Catalan Government has included a plan B in case the Spanish Government does not honour its fiscal obligations towards Catalonia.

The third plan represents an additional budget cut of €1.5 billion, in order to meet the 1.5% deficit target for this year. The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, said that the plan “guarantees essential services”. He also stated that if the Spanish Government had paid what it owed last year, the current reduction would be halved. The plan decreases budget allocations for public companies, reduces public employee salaries once again, decreases the amount allocated for subsidies, delays investments, privatises some public companies, sells public buildings, and implements the measures decided by the Spanish Government regarding health and education. The opposition criticised the plan for not being concrete and effective enough.

The Catalan Parliament has approved Catalonia’s Law of Budget Stability, which is more restrictive than its Spanish equivalent. The Catalan law reduces the adaptation time set in Spanish law by 2 years. Furthermore, it sets a 0% deficit for 2020. The law has been approved with the votes of the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU), which runs the Catalan Government, and the Conservative People’s Party (PP), which runs the Spanish Executive. Left-Wing parties have voted against the measure; according to them it follows the “0% deficit dogma” and forgets about “necessary” social spending.

The Catalan Government has rejected the Spanish Executive’s initiative to limit public healthcare to foreign nationals without a legalised residence status. The Spanish Government proposed that irregular immigrants would only have access to emergency rooms and obstetrics services, but not to regular treatments and consultations. The Catalan Health Minister, Boi Ruiz, confirmed on Friday that in Catalonia, all foreign residents, independent of their legal status, would have free access to the public health system for “solidarity” principles but also “for public health reasons”. Besides the ethical issue, experts had warned about infectious diseases that could have increased because of having groups of people excluded from the health system.

The Catalan Government has announced a plan against the Spanish Government’s “recentralisation offensive”. One of its actions is taking the education and healthcare reforms adopted by Madrid to the Catalan Council for Constitutional Guarantees, as a first step to bring them to Spain’s Constitutional Court. The Catalan Government believes that some of the measures invade its jurisdiction, as it directly manages education and healthcare. Another measure is issuing a report pointing out the Spanish Government’s duplicities, such as maintaining ministries such as education, healthcare and culture. These policies are managed by the Autonomies. Left-Wing opposition parties have urged the Catalan Government to take further measures, while the PP has accused the Catalan Executive of “lying”.

Barcelona City Council is concerned about being able to maintain the current public kindergarten model taking into account the budget cuts announced by the Catalan Government to reduce public spending. While in 2011 the Government contributed €1,600 per child, next year the quantity might be reduced to €1,000.

After a year of trials, Barcelona’s court of first instance number 37 will work only with computer files, eliminating the use of paper. The Catalan Government, in charge of managing the court’s offices in Catalonia, has developed an IT system that will enable court staff but also citizens to carry out every process in a faster and more efficient manner. The plan to develop the system began in 2006 and its development has had a cost of €5 million. The Government’s plan is that by 2019 every court in Catalonia will be fully digital.

Coinciding with the European Central Bank Governing Council organised in Barcelona, the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, met with Mario Draghi and other members of the ECB Governing Council. Mas took the opportunity to explain to the ECB the Catalan Government’s austerity measures and its efforts to reduce Catalonia’s public deficit. He also spoke of his party’s support to all the reforms taken at Spanish level, despite being unpopular. However, Mas warned the ECB President that reducing the deficit too fast in the middle of an economic recession might worsen the crisis.