On October 16, 1958, Jaume Vicens Vives gave “The Spanish captain of industry in the last hundred years”, a founding conference for the Cercle d’ Economia. The historian traced the thread that led Catalonia to be the economic engine of the State to encourage new generations to continue the path. At the time when the region was still “the factory of Spain”, however, only four Catalans had taken charge of the Ministry of Industry.
In the middle of the 19th century, when competition appeared with its own entity in the State administration, it was protected by the Ministry of Public Works. The leader of the Lliga Francesc Cambó held this portfolio between March and November 1918. It was not, however, until 1922 that the matter appeared in the name of a ministry, that of Labor, Commerce and Industry.
The lawyer from Lleida, former secretary of Cambó, Eduard Aunós was the first Catalan to occupy it after leaving the Lliga and brought closer to the National Monarchist Union. He was minister of the sector in the civil directory of the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera, between December 1925 and November 1928. Then, the industrial powers passed to the Ministry of National Economy.
In the Second Republic, the Barcelona historian Lluís Nicolau d’Olwer, from Acció Catalana Republicana, was head of this last ministry between April and December 1931. He was replaced by the republican Marcel·lí Domingo, now with the name of the powers returning to the frontispiece of the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce. The Tarragona teacher took charge until June 1933.
During the Civil War, the CNT leader from Barcelona Joan Peiró held the Ministry of Industry between November 1936 and May 1937. On the rebel side, the traditionalist lawyer from Tortosa Joaquim Bau chaired the Industry, Commerce and Supply commission of the Technical Board of the State of Francisco Franco, a position that was wanted to be equated to that of minister. During the dictatorship, however, no Catalan held the portfolio of Industry and Commerce, except Demetrio Carceller, an Aragonese raised in Terrassa, who did so between October 1940 and July 1945.
It was not until democracy was recovered that, in a remodeling of the socialist government of the first term of Felipe González, the Matarones industrial engineer Joan Majó acceded to the Ministry of Industry and Energy, between July 1985 and 1986. In the seventies there were The deindustrialization of Catalonia and Spain has begun.
In the first decade of the new century is when more Catalans have commanded Industry. Paradoxically, but perhaps not surprisingly, Catalonia has produced more ministers in the sector – four – as Spain’s deindustrialization has grown. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the relative weight of the State industry has decreased more than in all OECD countries, according to a study by economists José Carlos Fariñas, Ana Martín Marcos and Francisco J. Velázquez (2015). .
The PP’s Vilanovese economist, Josep Piqué, was in charge of Industry and Energy, between May 1996 and April 2000, exhausting the entire first term of José Maria Aznar. José Montilla was Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism between April 2004 and September 2006 until he left the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to be a candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat. Joan Clos left the mayor of Barcelona to replace him until April 2008.
Since this week, a second former mayor of Barcelona, ??with a degree in Business Administration, occupies Industry. He is the ninth Catalan to properly take charge as minister – after Aunós, Domingo, Peiró, Carceller, Majó, Piqué, Montilla and Clos. Over the course of a century, these have done so together for only 18 years. Eight of which in the last twenty. The party that has supported the Catalans the most has been the PSOE and, as a whole, the left. Although the most remembered, Piqué, was placed on the right.
Industry is one of the ministries that the most Catalans have held, along with Health. Cristina Fernández Rivera and Jean-Baptiste Harguindéguy from the Pablo de Olavide University and Juan Rodríguez Teruel from the University of Valencia, in the study Regional Ambassadors or State Agents? Assessing the Role of Catalan Cabinet Ministers in Spain (2022), they explain that the presence of Catalans in these two portfolios positions them as “middle class ministers in Spanish politics, often influential, but rarely decisive.” Political Science professors add that when the PSOE has not had an absolute majority, the PSC has tended to send “regional ambassadors” to governments to “strengthen support in the cabinet.”
Since the Vicens Vives conference until today, the Catalan industry has been reduced by two thirds, from 43% to 17%, according to a study by the Foundation for Applied Economics Studies and BBVA Research (2023). Whether Minister Hereu will get the reindustrializing captains that the historian demanded to follow him and what role he will play for socialism is what remains to be seen.
