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Barcelona-Girona high speed rail line has nine times more travelers than the Barcelona-Tarragona route

May 26, 2017 08:42 AM | ACN / Lluís Sibils / Blanca Ojeda

The high speed railway line that connects Girona to Barcelona registered 1.01 million travelers throughout 2016. That is the same volume of passengers that went from Catalonia’s capital city to Tarragona over the last nine years according to statistics provided by Renfe, the Spanish train operator. Barcelona is not only connected to Girona and Tarragona; Avant trains also travel to Lleida. This route has also been a great success in 2016, used by 4.03 million passengers. Altogether 10.7 million people have traveled from the four Catalan provincial capitals since 2008. 2016 was the most successful year with 2.05 million travelers.

Party Review - ‘Unió’: "Pro-independence forces are tricking the citizens"

December 11, 2015 03:02 PM | ACN / Sara Prim

Christian-Democrat Unió is the smaller party within the former governing coalition CiU. After the political alliance's break up, Unió is running in the Spanish elections "to represent all those Catalans who defend a moderate position" and believe "in dialogue and agreement" as the only "possible solution" to improve Catalonia's relationship with Spain, stated its leader Josep Anton Duran i Lleida. According to Duran the "pro-independence forces are tricking the citizens" in Catalonia, as they have "already reached an agreement" but refuse "to explain its consequences to the citizens" which he assured "represents electoral fraud". Catalonia's independence, besides being "impossible" will lead to "political and economic instability", assured Duran i Lleida and added that none of the parties involved and "of course not the EU" will accept the rupture of a Member State nor another crisis within the EU "like the Greek one but with greater dimensions".

Pioneering website to follow up illnesses in the porcine sector

October 13, 2015 04:24 PM | ACN / Sara Prim

Porcine Sanitation Group (GSP) in Lleida region, together with the Catalan Ministry of Agriculture, has launched 'Portal de Casos Clínics' ('Portal of Clinique Cases'), an innovative website to help veterinary tasks in the porcine sector. The application, a first in Europe, enables the professionals to do a follow up of the state and evolution of porcine illnesses in real time. The aim is to help veterinarians to diagnose as well as anticipate problems and optimise the resources and time used for treatment. This sanitary tool has already 7,000 cases indexed. The launching of the website is another step forward for GSP, a non-profit association which aims to improve the sanitary standard and profitability of porcine companies in Catalonia.  

EU finds 27-S electoral list without politicians "a bit odd", UDC leader says

July 7, 2015 08:25 PM | ACN

On Tuesday, Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida, Chairman of the Unió Democràtica de Catalunya (UDC) governing committee, said that the EU finds "a bit odd" the proposal of an electoral list without politicians for the 27-S elections. Speaking to the press from the European Parliament in Strasbourg, he said it is hard to "understand" how Catalonia will be governed."Although the post 27-S Executive's only goal will be Catalan independence, health care and education will need to be managed", he highlighted. UDC Secretary General, Ramon Espadaler, added that "UDC received the support of European Christian Democratic party leaders to run alone in the 27-S elections". In June, due to their differences on Catalonia's independence, UDC split from Artur Mas’ Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC), after running together in every election since 1978 and having forged a political "federation" between them.

Governing centre-right coalition CiU breaks up over independence stance, after 37 years swaying Catalan politics

June 18, 2015 10:39 PM | ACN

After running together in every election since 1978, Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC) and Unió Democràtica de Catalunya (UDC) are splitting apart. The Liberal party CDC, which is the larger force within the centre-right pro-Catalan State coalition CiU (running the Catalan Government since 2010), supports full independence from Spain while the Christian-Democrat UDC does not have a clear stance on the issue and its leadership is against it and is supporting a Catalan State confederated with Spain. After UDC held an internal consultation over the issue last weekend, which split the Christian-Democrats into two camps, crisis within CiU seemed inevitable. On Wednesday, UDC announced it was leaving the Catalan Government but not CiU. The Liberal CDC met that night and, on Thursday morning, announced "the CiU is over"; that they were splitting from the Christian-Democrats for "deep reasons".

UDC ministers quit Catalan government over independence row

June 17, 2015 08:56 PM | ACN

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.