The community will now manage its ports and airports

Is this form, a huge boat hull reversed Or its location, at the bottom of the former bed of the River Turia The Palace of art Queen Sofia, Valencia, has failed in the city ship speeds. Immaculate white, this vessel nearly 70 metres high is the fifth and final building of the city of arts and sciences, a set of futuristic buildings designed by a local architect, Santiago Calatrava. Once completed, in a few months, it will house several theatres. The largest (1700 seats) will host including Opera and Symphony Orchestra that the city is Mount.

Valencia will then compete with Madrid and especially Barcelona, its great rival. The third (770.000 inhabitants) Spanish metropolis, which is much developed in recent years, not hesitate to compete in the Catalan capital. It is, in any case, remain in its tail. In music as well as policy.

The Valencian Community is to obtain, such as Catalonia, a reform of its autonomous status. It has even been served before her. "As soon as the Basques and the Catalans have put the question of the articles on the table, we we're attacked on the subject", tells Alo Montesinos, the Director of institutional relations of the Generalitat, the regional executive. An agreement was quickly found in Valencia between the popular party, the head of the region, and the Socialist Party. And their project has been validated without major problem by the Cortes in Madrid.

"There was not was nationalist outbid Valencia as in Barcelona, Jordi Panuaga, one of VCI officials, the local agency for the promotion of investment." Valencian leaders were realistic and have not requested more that they could not obtain.

A language recognized

Under the terms of the new status, which clarifies the distribution of competences between Madrid and Valencia, the President of the Generalitat can including dissolving the regional Parliament. The community will now manage its ports and airports. And the Valencian is now recognized as a language of her own, different from the catalan, which it looks like yet much since only a few words and pronunciation differ. "It is the most important point, j. Alo Montesinos. The Valencian was not part of the four official languages recognized by the Spanish Constitution of 1978. "It is now spoken by 40 of the 4.7 million inhabitants of the community and widely used in regional education.

This recognition will allow the region "to assert his particularism" and "to differentiate clearly from Catalonia, which often tends to integrate it into its sphere of cultural influence", said Antonio Lis Darder, Director General of VCI. An often condescending expansionism which enrages the Valencians.

"With this new status, the Valencian Community have the same prerogatives as the Catalonia and other so-called historical regions", insists Marina Gordillo, journalist for the local daily newspaper "Las provincias". Moreover, a very explicit clause provides that it will benefit automatically advances granted in the future to other communities.

One thing is sure, Valencia well keep in the future for his account a greater share of tax revenues collected on its soil. As Catalonia.