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ECONOMY

Barcelona to host Mobile World Congress until 2030

The Mobile World Congress, the telecom industry's biggest annual gathering, will be held in Barcelona until 2030, extending its current contract by six years, organisers said Monday.

Published: 27 June 2022 13:08 CEST
barcelona world mobile congress
The 2022 edition, which returned to its normal format, drew 61,000 participants to Barcelona. Photo: Pere Jurado/Unsplash

The event, which draws more than 100,000 people to Barcelona, has been held in Spain’s second largest city since 2006.

The existing agreement between the GSMA association that hosts the congress and local authorities ran until 2024.

“We are thrilled to announce that MWC will remain in Barcelona through to 2030,” said GSMA director general Mats Granryd said in a statement.

“Barcelona is so intertwined in the MWC experience, it’s hard for me to think about one and not the other,” he added.

The gathering was one of the first events to be cancelled in 2020 as Covid-19 started to sweep across the world.

A scaled back edition was held in 2021 in June instead of February as is usually the case, with many events staged online.

The 2022 edition, which returned to its normal format, drew 61,000 participants, far less than the over 100,000 who attended in 2019 before the pandemic hit.

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POLITICS

Socialist win in Catalan election ‘ends decade of division’: Spain’s PM

Spain's leader Pedro Sánchez said Thursday his Socialist party's success in the Catalan elections ended a "decade of division" in the wealthy northeastern region, long governed by separatists.

Published: 16 May 2024 17:16 CEST
Socialist win in Catalan election 'ends decade of division': Spain's PM

“The Catalan Socialist party’s victory… ends a decade of division and resentment within Catalan society and will doubtlessly open a new era of understanding and coexistence,” the prime minister said in his first remarks since Sunday’s election.

The Socialists coming top in the vote was a blow for the Catalan separatist parties which lost their governing majority in the region’s parliament that they have dominated for the past decade.

Since becoming premier some nine months after the botched independence bid of October 2017, Sánchez has adopted a policy of “reengagement” with the wealthy northeastern region to “heal the wounds” opened by the crisis.

In 2021, he pardoned the separatists jailed over the secession bid and has pushed through an amnesty bill for those still wanted by the justice system in exchange for key separatist backing that let him secure a new term in office.

That bill is due to become law in the coming weeks which will allow Carles Puigdemont – the Catalan leader who led the secession bid then fled Spain to avoid prosecution – to finally return home.

Despite Sunday’s result, in which the separatist parties secured 59 of the parliament’s 135 seats, Puigdemont – whose hardline JxCat party came second – said he would seek to build a ruling coalition.

READ MORE: Catalan separatist kingpin refuses to give up on ruling despite ‘pro-Spain win’

“We have an opportunity and we will make the most of it,” he said in the southern French town of Perpignan.

ERC, JxCat’s more moderate separatist rival, lost a lot of support in Sunday’s vote, triggering a crisis within the party.

Even so, it is likely to play a key role in Puigdemont’s coalition-building efforts as well as those of the Catalan Socialists, who won with 42 seats — also a long way from the 68 mandates required to rule.

Analysts say the most likely option would see the Socialists allying with the radical left party Comuns Sumar, which won six seats, and ERC, which won 20, giving it exactly 68.

READ ALSO: Which Catalans want independence from Spain?

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