That the process has been left behind is an incontestable reality that not even the independentists dare to discuss. Another thing is that enormous wounds remain to be healed on various levels. Firstly, that of an entire generation of first and second line politicians committed to this cause who have yet to know how their personal future and also their political career will be resolved.
The elections that Catalonia will face at the end of 2024 or at the beginning of 2025 will test the change of course that Catalan society and the pro-independence political parties that have contributed with their favorable vote to the investiture of Pedro Sánchez in the Government are experiencing. The turnaround of Junts with the possible return of Carles Puigdemont to the leadership of the party, the competition with ERC for the sovereign space and the role of the PSC, with polls that are favorable to it, will set the pace of Catalan politics, where Pre-electoral air is already in the air. The first duties of the year will be to agree on budgets that ERC, with only 33 deputies, takes for granted, but that need the support of the PSC.
The amnesty law, agreed by the pro-independence groups with the Socialist Party in exchange for joining the majority of Sánchez’s investiture, will be decisive in resolving the long trail of the process. The year 2024 will be, above all, the year of amnesty. But, assuming that this operation will come to fruition and can decide which political leaders – now disqualified – can run in the next elections, Catalan politics has to face an extensive and difficult agenda stuck to the ground.
To begin with, the most urgent, the drought. It is surprising to note that the hydrological year on the Peninsula has been wetter than the previous one. This has been the case, except in the Eastern regions and particularly in Catalonia, where the hydrological reserves of the internal Catalan basins, those that affect the provinces of Barcelona and Girona, are at 17%. When they reach 16%, these territories will enter an emergency situation with a severe impact on agriculture and the services sector.
No one with common sense can hold the Generalitat and the city councils responsible for the fact that it does not rain, but they can blame the fact that a policy has not been made in accordance with a threat, that of structural drought, which year after year is confirmed as one of the effects of the climate change. The impact it may have on the agricultural sector – stressed and dissatisfied for this and other reasons –, on the tourism sector and on new industrial investment will fall on local governments, but especially on the Generalitat.
The latest PISA report, which places Catalan students among the worst prepared compared to other Spanish and European regions, has been a hard blow for the Government. Criticism of the results has intensified from the opposition and the educational community, which urgently demand a change in the model. The Executive of Pere Aragonès has one year to reverse some poor results that reflect that the charter school surpasses the public one by almost two years in mathematics, reading and science. A difference that occurs with a left-wing government that has increased the education budget, but has still failed in this matter.
Catalonia will reach eight million inhabitants in 2023. A population record, driven by immigration. One in five new Catalans is a foreigner, and immigrants already number 1.65 million people, according to Idescat. To remember Jordi Pujol’s slogan “Som 6 milions”. Immigration management and how to integrate newcomers is one of the great challenges facing Catalonia. More so at a time when ultra-nationalist political parties point to migrants as guilty of insecurity, loss of identity, weakening of the language, unemployment… A discourse that is not only raised by Vox. A gap is opening up for Junts on the right flank. Aware of this, in the national council that will be held in January they will address the issue of Aliança Catalana, in the local government of Ripoll, running for election. The CEO’s latest barometer reflected that 64.5% of voters who support Junts consider that there is an excess of immigration. Mayors from the Maresme formation have come to the fore to protest the insecurity in their municipalities and have linked it to migrants in an attempt to also wear down ERC and the Department of the Interior. There is concern in the post-convergent ranks, and in negotiations with the Socialist Party, former president Puigdemont has demanded the transfer of powers over immigration. The PSC has come to the aid of the post-convergents, in the cities around Ripoll, to prevent the “phenomenon from expanding.”
Rents have seen a sharp rise this year, straining the finances of many families. In Barcelona, ??the average rent is now 1,171 euros per month, 10% more than a year ago, according to the Agència de l’Habitatge. But rent inflation is not exclusive to the metropolitan environment, and affects towns in the Pyrenees or tourist areas where residential rentals are derived from tourist or temporary rentals. The Government has carried out the decree thanks to an agreement with the PSC to stop the proliferation of tourist apartments that take away housing from the residential market. A decree that does not have the approval of business lobbies and the most tourist cities. In the end, the measure will only be applied in 140 municipalities – it was planned to apply in more than 200 – which will have powers to set the number of tourist homes that are allowed.
In the last ten years Catalonia has suffered paralysis in the processing of projects and insufficient development in renewable energy. Added to this is a strong social and political protest in the territory that makes it difficult for the country to cover future electricity demand. To make up for this lack of foresight, the private plan is on the table to enable three corridors of very high voltage lines (MAT) from Aragon, which clashes with the imagination of what for many Catalan energy sovereignty should be.
2024 will be a pre-electoral year in which things about eating will have more weight than identity discourse.
