The Minister of Economy’s plan for El Prat airport will be the result of “a technical work that will identify the options to increase intercontinental flights”. He did not give more details during the conversation he held at the Circle with the vice-president of the entity. Therefore, the options may not involve expansion works, but only relocation of take-off and landing spaces.
He began his speech in the Circle with a tone similar to that used the day before by President Pere Aragonès. “The Catalan economy is moving in the right direction”, he said before rejecting the “defeatisms that are not justified and that do not help anyone”. According to the Economia headline, “we have to accept the criticism, but we have to stop the apocalyptic speeches”.
At the colloquium he was asked questions about the impact of the flight of companies. He drew iron to the effects and even assured that Madrid had lost more, but he did not refer to the fact that, in the case of Catalonia, almost all of the Ibex had gone and most of the big companies But he emphasized that the “vast majority” of social headquarters transfers did not involve worker movements and that the whole process had “a lower impact than it has seemed”.
In his opinion, the magnitude of the figures shows that if “the Catalan economy and public services are where they are, it is almost heroic”. He also recalled the lack of investment in infrastructure and the low budget execution. For this reason, he warned that the Ministry of Finance has once again delayed the publication of investment data in 2022, which was scheduled for Tuesday, by another semester. He recalled that since 2015 the average implementation of State infrastructure investments in Madrid is 122% and in Catalonia, 62%: “That these differences are so persistent and differential can only be explained for a deliberate decision” that harms all Catalans. But he also criticized the non-compliance with the Financing of the Autonomous Communities law (Lofca) and the distribution of the deficit authorized by the EU for 2024.
The minister explained that in the new geostrategic context Europe wants more industrial, technological and energy sovereignty. Therefore, projects are mostly developed in emerging sectors, such as chip manufacturing, quantum technologies and bioengineering, among others.
