Highlights

Around the world people celebrate Easter with a range of different activities, and eating delicious cakes is one of them. Different countries or regions have developed different recipes. In Catalonia, Easter is associated with "mona de Pasqua" ("mones" in plural), a cake topped with chocolate figurines. This year, Catalan bakers expect to sell between 800,000 and 900,000 of them. Elies Miró, Chairman of the Patisserie Guild of Barcelona, confirms that he is "moderately optimistic", expecting sales to increase by 2% over 2014 figures. According to 2015 estimates, each Catalan family will spend on average between €40 and €50 on this Easter cake. The most popular versions of "mones" are still those made with butter, chocolate and candied fruit. This year, the top most-wanted characters are princesses Anna and Elsa from the Disney Animation movie Frozen.

The Spanish president has described the agreement between the CDC and ERC as “bad” and “against the law”. Mariano Rajoy also said that the 27-S election is not a plebiscite and warned that “no Spanish government will ever authorise the break-up of the national sovereignty”. The Catalan Government spokesman, Francesc Homs, replied that the Spanish president is actually contributing to the ‘No’ campaign with his comments. Homs criticised, however, the fact that Rajoy “has never said that he will respect the result of the vote, whatever it is”.

Mas, Junqueras and the three main civil society organisations in Catalonia have signed a roadmap stating that following a victory of the ‘Yes’ parties in the next Catalan election, a new Constitution will be drafted and then voted on in a binding referendum. If Catalans vote ‘Yes’ to the proposed Constitution, independence will be declared no later than 2017.

The economic crisis has forced Catalonia to begin a new era based on research, innovation and entrepreneurship and the Catalan Government is making serious efforts to make it easier for entrepreneurs to launch their projects. Cristina Pruñonosa, Director of the Business Management Office of the Government of Catalonia, explains that since 2014 “any entrepreneur can create his or her company in 48 hours and anyone can set themself up as a self-employed worker at the moment”. The representative of the biggest business organisation in Catalonia, Maria Mora, evaluates positively the achievements of the Catalan Government but remarks that there is still room for improvement. Nonetheless, Pere Codom, the Director of Entrepreneurship from the Catalan Ministry for Business and Employment does not hesitate when hailing Catalonia as a “tremendously entrepreneurship friendly country”.

Mireia Belmonte, Ona Carbonell and Gervasio Deferr. Today’s most famous Catalan athletes all have in common the fact that they started their careers by entering a High Performance Centre and improving their preparation. In Catalonia, many such centres exist and the most famous one is the High Performance Centre at Sant Cugat del Vallès, el CAR, where nearly 1,000 young sports men and women train every day. But the majority of these athletes must take the first step before entering the CAR. This is the main objective of the six Sports Technification Centres that exist today in Catalonia. The ‘Joaquim Blume’ residence is a multidisciplinary centre that apart from making athlete technification easier, also teaches them how to combine their sporting life with an academic education.