That Catalonia is entering a new political scenario and leaving behind the dense years lived is already evidence. Re-generationism is imposed. If you listen carefully to the leaders of the two most successful parties in this election campaign, Carles Puigdemont and Salvador Illa, both are emphasizing, from very different perspectives and formulas, the same ideas: regenerate, redo and recast.
Last night’s debate on TV3 – with Puigdemont, as is already known, absent – affected this perspective. The candidates, also those who have had government responsibilities in Catalonia in recent years, put on the table this expectation of a paradigm shift in matters such as the relationship with the central government, funding or language.
In Catalonia’s list of pending tasks in relation to the past, there is the return of the companies that fled in 2017 fearing the consequences of the unilateral declaration of independence.
There are various estimates about how many crossed the Ebro, some exceed 5,000, others lower it to 4,000. The truth is that first the banks, then many listed companies and finally some thousands of firms moved their headquarters, although not their activity, outside of Catalonia. And few have returned.
Salvador Illa, the PSC candidate, has explained his proposal to encourage his return. Illa is against the sanctions proposed by Junts for companies that separate their registered address from their decision-making center.
The formation led by Carles Puigdemont recently presented to Congress an amendment to avoid this double location which, he believes, should be the subject of a fine.
The pro-independence proposal has its history: in 2017, in view of the rush of some companies to leave Catalonia before the eventual declaration of independence, Minister Luis de Guindos, at the request of some Catalan businessmen, introduce a reform so that the decision to leave could be adopted as soon as possible, without the need to meet the shareholders’ meeting.
Now Junts wants to return to the members the power to promote the return with the conviction that some Catalan shareholders of companies that left then will promote the return now. The threat of fines would be an added argument and tax incentives for those who return – another of Junts’ proposals – the stimulus of his plan.
Illa does not share this position. He rejects sanctions as a form of pressure and considers that institutional and political stability is the first condition for the return of these companies. Add to that the updating of the infrastructures and especially the debureaucratization of the public administration and the attraction of investments and talent. The socialist candidate has not advocated a tax cut as an incentive for them to return.
What, on the contrary, in generic terms, does defend this option is the Popular Party. Its candidate, Alejandro Fernández, argued at a Barcelona Tribuna dinner held yesterday that the dismantling of what he describes as the Catalan “fiscal hell” is at the basis of the eventual return of companies together with the legal certainty that , according to his opinion, today it is not yet guaranteed in Catalonia.
Fernández, however, is not just referring to the companies that left. He believes that if both conditions were met, Catalonia would be in a position to regain attractiveness for many companies.
Much tougher was his leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who made the presentations of his candidate yesterday. “Catalonia has lost its leadership – assured the leader of the PP – it has lost 9,000 companies, it has lost foreign investment. In 2016, it had 30% of foreign investment in Spain; now, 16%. All this with a fiscal suffocation. The Catalans are the ones who pay the most taxes”. A devastating diagnosis that fits with the vision that today seems to be held by the leaders of the PP, that of a Catalonia in severe decline.
Esquerra, for its part, has spoken little or nothing about the return of companies to the campaign and in its program it also does not mention a strategy for the return. When Junts proposed a fiscal incentive for the return of the companies that left, the Republicans considered that this measure would be a grievance for the firms that continued here despite the harsh circumstances of the moment.
On Monday, it was the Catalan employers’ association, Foment, that requested measures for the return of companies. Its president, Josep Sánchez Llibre, assured that “in addition to the fact that they will return when there is political stability, it will be essential to have modern infrastructure, such as the expanded El Prat airport, and competitive taxation”. The return, assured Sánchez Libre, will come “without the need for subsidies or penalties”.
