BARCELONA — Barcelona is a beautiful city with palm-linedstreets, old -world architecture made of greys, yellows and pinks.Iron-wrought curlicues protect windows. Market stands selleverything from jewellery to live rabbits while living statuesdressed as pirates, courtesans, Roman soldiers or whatever theimagination of the creator can create to encourage tourists tothrow a few Euros their way.

Barcelona considers itself Catalan. A majority of its people arebilingual, Spanish and Catalan. During the Spanish Civil Warhundreds of thousands escaped across the border into France.

Today, Barcelona is one of the most prosperous regions in Spain,although it has been hit by the economic crisis and severedrought.

Against this background of Spanish history and Catalan culture,WOCCU is holding its Annual Conference along with Banco CooperativoEspanol and Union Nacional de Cooperativas de Credito. More than1,000 delegates are coming from 62 countries. The United States isrepresented by 225 delegates, Canada has 178, Ireland 124 andAustralia 67.

Delegates are also attending from credit unions in Uzbekistan,Zimbabwe, Lesotho and the Seychelles. Their representatives aretravelling from halfway around the world to participate.