The First Vice President and Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño, has blamed the two-year pandemic for the investment deficit for infrastructure in Catalonia, since, as she has assured, it has generated “significant problems” when executing public works. This year, however, progress has already been made in execution and the bidding for works has increased by 60%, he underlined during his speech at the Vanguard Forums cycle, held this Monday at the Cercle d’Economia and sponsored by Indra, Enagas and Post Office. Under the title “The growth of the economy in progress”, the minister analyzed the future of the Spanish economy and its prospects within the framework of the European Union in the delicate context of the post-pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Although Calviño has maintained that it is “a priority to recover the pace of execution of the works”, he has denied that Catalonia is under-financed, as maintained by the Generalitat and social agents. Last year only 4 out of 10 euros committed by the central government arrived, while in Madrid 18 out of 10 planned were invested. The State invested 740 million euros in Catalonia while in Madrid they were 2,086, a situation that has strained the relationship between the Executive and the investiture partners and that has caused complaints from employers and unions in Catalonia.
“Rodalies have to be improved, the Mediterranean corridor has to be completed, the infrastructures of the whole country and of Catalonia have to be improved”, the minister stated in this regard. However, she has insisted that all the autonomous communities are considered “battered” in terms of infrastructure.
In Extremadura, a community that the first vice president has recently visited, they claim the railway, she stressed. “In Galicia, that with the end of the works of the AVE the investment will drop”. “I am not going to minimize the importance of the infrastructures, but that feeling is shared by all the autonomous communities”, she has settled.
As for inflation, which has already reached 8.7%, the vice president has hoped that it will not exceed two digits and has reaffirmed the Government’s will to update pensions with the CPI. “Retired people are not going to lose purchasing power,” she has promised herself.
The forum – led by the editor-in-chief of La Vanguardia Economics, Elisenda Vallejo, the head of Economics of RAC1, Montse Martí, and the journalist and Ramon Rovira, deputy to the presidency of the Godó Group – was attended by Javier Godó, Count of Godó , editor of La Vanguardia, Jordi Juan, director of La Vanguardia, Carme Artigas, Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence, Maria Eugènia Gay, Government Delegate in Catalonia, Antoni Llarden, President of Enagas, Javier Faus, President of the Cercle d ‘Economia, and Laia Bonet, councilor of Barcelona City Council for the PSC, among others.
