Month: June 2015

Monthly Archives: June 2015

Articles 25. June 2015 No comments

Catalan News Agency – Institut Ramon Llull optimistic about future collaboration with Balearic Islands and Valencia

Barcelona (ACN).- The Institut Ramon Llull (IRL) is a public body in charge of promoting Catalan culture and language abroad. On Thursday, “it expressed optimism for the first time” about a collaboration with the new Governments of Valencia and the Balearic Islands, both led by left-wing coalitions. The Director of the institute, Àlex Susanna, said that, following the May 2015 elections, “positive signs” are emerging but still could not confirm any conclusive agreement. According to him, the new political landscape opens a “great opportunity” to promote the international mobility of artists and intellectuals from Catalan-speaking territories. Asked about the new Head of Barcelona City Council – part of the consortium constituting the institute – Susanna said that he foresees “continuity” with the work of previous local Executives. Finally, the Director expressed his hope for the Institut to keep playing a key role in the Catalan capital’s internationalisation that new Mayor Ada Colau aims to promote.

The Institut Ramon Llull is a consortium comprising the Government of Catalonia and the Barcelona City Council, with foreign offices in New York, Berlin, London and Paris. Originally founded by the Autonomous Governments of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands in 2002, the collaboration between the two was interrupted twice during the institution’s life, firstly in 2004, and later in 2012, when the Balearic Popular Party-led Government broke its ties with the public body again after a 4-year return (between 2008 and 2012).

Articles 19. June 2015 No comments

Eco-villages in Catalonia: the rise of new green models in times of crisis

Barcelona (ACN).- An increasing number of people are fed up with living in concrete jungles. Many think of the countryside as a solution to problems such as stress, a low-paying job and pollution. Due to the start of the economic crisis, this phenomenon boomed, with people beginning to look for an ‘alternative way of life’ or, at least, new opportunities. Catalonia and the whole of Spain are no exception to this. Here, moving (back) to the countryside nowadays looks like an attractive option to many, especially to young unemployed graduates. However, sustainable agriculture initiatives and the like are the ‘junior division’ compared to more complex social, cultural and ecological experiments: the eco-villages. Coming in different shapes and sizes, their members share resources and spaces, grow their own food and cover in a sustainable way the energy demand of the buildings they live in. With different missions and features, many eco-villages can be traced back to one or two decades ago and could teach a lot to newcomers.

In Catalonia, people started thinking of the countryside as an alternative between the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, when the first sustainable agriculture initiatives began, explains University of Barcelona’s Professor Maria Àngels Alió. “Nowadays, many young people born in small villages move to big cities such as Barcelona, Madrid, London or Paris. When some of them complete their degrees, they realise the city has few opportunities to offer them and decide to go back to their places of origin”, she states. “As opposed to their parents – who went to the city to study and remained there after finding a stable job – they go back to the countryside. Some of them do it in an alternative way, as being a traditional farmer in the current context of industrial agriculture is not interesting to them”, Professor Alió concludes.