A cordial, but tough clash between the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, and the Circle regarding the economic situation in Catalonia closed the second day of the organization’s meeting yesterday. “We cannot accept talk of stagnation” in Catalonia, the president repeated several times in front of hundreds of businessmen and executives who gathered at the W Hotel in Barcelona.
It was the response to the intervention of the president of the Cercle d’Economia, Jaume Guardiola, who reviewed how Catalonia had moved away from Spain and the EU in terms of GDP per capita and had caused “an important setback that it must make you think”. Aragonès baffled the audience with figures such as GDP growth, affiliates, foreign investment or exports. In the Opinion Note, the Circle assured last week that “since the beginning of the century there has been an absolute stagnation in the standard of living and a relative decline compared to Spain and Europe”.
In the subsequent colloquium, Guardiola questioned Aragonès that he no longer demands an improvement in the financing system. The president of the Generalitat replied that “it’s not a question of sharing the money” with a reform of the financing system, but rather it is necessary to choose to be able to manage all the taxes. In his opinion, entering into a change of the current model will not end the funding problems that the community has.
Aragonès took advantage of the conference to send a message of optimism and confidence in the future. “In some areas you can hear a defeatist speech that has nothing to do with reality”, he pointed out after defending the need to see the glass half full.
When he analyzed in detail the relative loss of GDP per inhabitant in relation to Europe in 2000, the president of the Generalitat wanted to warn that 20 years ago the economy was based on a model of “a neoliberal policy of the PP that was an abandonment of industry and a commitment to low cost tourism and the financial system”.
And he warned that that policy was the one that caused a generation – which includes himself – to suffer situations of job insecurity or access to housing as a result of the excesses experienced. Aragonès warned that those years may return if a change of government ends up being imposed in the called elections. In response to Guardiola’s questions, the politician considered the advance of the elections to be bad news: “The fact that the president has called an end to the legislature has laid a red carpet for a change of government”.
For Jaume Guardiola, the advance is also “not good” because it means chaining electoral processes that make it difficult to reach consensus.
At a previous conference, the Minister of Social Security, José Luis Escrivá, defended his reform of the pension system by all means. The minister maintained that the approved measures guarantee the sustainability of the system and in no case endanger the labor market. Labor costs after the reform, he insisted, remain below the European average and he considered that it will barely affect companies. In this sense, he emphasized that the aggregate labor cost in Spain is lower than the average in Europe. There is, he insisted, no loss of competitiveness, and there is indeed more social protection. Escrivá criticized the reports of Airef or the Bank of Spain on the sustainability of the system.
