Municipalities with less than 2,000 inhabitants represent about 64% of the territory of Catalonia but only house about 4% of the population. In a context of very low birth rates and progressive aging of the population, it is urgent to encourage the arrival of new neighbors. The Eines de Repoblament Rural (ERR) lobby, made up of more than 500 town councils, as well as the Associació de Micropobles de Catalunya (AMC), have placed their hopes in the future statute of rural municipalities, in the drafting of which different departments of the Generalitat coordinated by the Presidency, but which advances at a slow pace.
The first draft of it, presented by the Minister of the Presidency, Laura Vilagrà, to the municipal entities last September, has been received by many with disappointment. “It is such a precarious document… It does not propose solutions to reverse the situation in the rural world, it seems that the majority of departments of the Generalitat have not taken it seriously or done their homework,” laments Jaume Gilabert, mayor of Montgai. and ERR coordinator, who nevertheless trusts that the next proposal does include the mayors’ demands. One of the main demands, on which ERR and Micropobles agree, is the need to simplify administrative processes, eliminate bureaucracy in town councils where they barely have the staff to process files and serve residents. They consider it unfair that a town with, for example, 200 registered residents and few resources has the same obligations as a large city.
This initial draft of the statute, Gilabert indicates, does not specify actions aimed at overcoming the housing deficit, a burden that limits repopulation in these destinations. The mayors’ mantra is to promote less restrictive urban planning regulations to be able to build in rural areas, in addition to approving more aid and tax benefits to retain local entrepreneurs and attract new ones. It is about betting on positive discrimination for towns with less than 2,000 inhabitants.
Mario Urrea, mayor of Torrebesses and also defender of the status as president, until last July, of Micropobles, believes that this initial proposal is “not very daring and weak”, although, like Gilabert, he appreciates the good will of the Presidency to ensure that the document moves in the desired direction. The current president of Micropobles and mayor of Riner, Joan Solà, considers that “there are aspects to improve so that it is a law that benefits the local world,” but he appreciates that the first steps have been taken.
The draft does propose tax reductions for people who move to these municipalities, a measure that Gilabert considers positive if it is also established that lifelong residents enjoy the same benefits. “Otherwise it would be discriminatory,” says the ERR coordinator. The document presented by Vilagrà provides for deductions for the purchase, rehabilitation or rental of homes in these locations.
The secretary of Local Governments and Relations with Aran, David Rodríguez, downplays the importance of the content of this initial proposal, says that what is relevant is to achieve the consensus of all municipal entities and assures that they are now working on a more elaborate text that It will be ready in November or, at the latest, at the beginning of next December. “We have had to give ourselves more time because it is not an easy document, it is still at a very incipient level,” says Rodríguez, emphasizing that “nothing will be approved without agreement with the local world.”
The secretary estimates that during the first quarter of 2024 the statute can be approved by the Government for the subsequent processing of the law in Parliament.
It is worth remembering that Laura Vilagrà announced in September 2022 that the process of drafting the statute was already underway, “through the drafting group with jurists from different backgrounds coordinated by the UB” and that, at the beginning of 2023, the first eraser. The deadlines have not been met, but the mayors are confident that they will soon have in their hands a more elaborate proposal in which the bases for stopping rural depopulation are detailed precisely and unambiguously.
