Observations from a Martian

The political atmosphere is dense and Spain is readying all its resources, which are many and include the courts of law, propaganda well-coordinated with the Moncloa's agenda, and coercive means

Esther Vera
3 min
Observacions d’un marcià

If you read the newspapers on the way to the annual meeting of the Cercle d’Economia, it might seem like a zombie invasion was at hand. Epistolary exchanges with requests for agreement to hold a referendum, and responses with accusations of an attempted coup d'état. Coinciding with the sessions in Sitges, a spokesperson for the Spanish government noted that Spain is a unitary state and that withdrawal of regional powers would be relatively straightforward. The possibility of regression of self-government, beyond the current financial intervention of the Generalitat, has begun to be expressed out loud, and the chess pieces are being moved to make it possible.

The political atmosphere is dense, and the central government is readying all its resources, which are many and include the courts of law, propaganda well-coordinated with the Moncloa's agenda, and coercive means. On one hand, Rajoy puts the focus on his proposal for a discussion in Madrid’s parliament, well aware that it would only bring the debate to a dead end. On the other, it is no coincidence that on Friday Spain’s Constitutional Court endorsed the Spanish law governing the National System for Civil Protection, which allows the central government to “take over the job of coordinating the various public services and resources” anywhere in Spain. That is, to gain control of the Catalan police force (Mossos d’Esquadra) and take over all powers on security matters, and perhaps public media, too. The way things are evolving now makes one think that the government's delegate to Catalonia will have to assume direct responsibilities at some point. This is what an important politician referred to a few years ago when he said that "perhaps they would have to end up giving up the keys" of self-government and make a strategic retreat, depending on events and the magnitude of Madrid’s reaction.

The protagonists of the political situation have maintained their positions unchanged in appearances before the businesspeople of the Cercle. Puigdemont left the audience cold. There was no complicity, and the new president of the Cercle took advantage of his introductory address to help Rajoy by speaking in favor of the debate in Madrid’s parliament; Brugera is no Antón Costas, subtle and able to turn deliberate ambiguity into Vatican diplomacy and defend a non-existent third option with bonhomie. A regular attendant explained the lack of complicity with the president: “By announcing that he does not intend to run in the next election, Puigdemont has damaged his image as an interlocutor”.

The Vice-president and Economic Minister deployed the evangelizing strategy of Junqueras-is-love. With the strength of the Catalan economy, backed up by powerful data such as the growth of activity at the Port of Barcelona (25% in 2017, and 34% in container activity) and the export strength of the recovery, he focused on defusing the fears manufactured and put into circulation about multi-lingualism in Catalonia.

The imminent zombie outbreak in the political sphere arrived with Mariano Rajoy, who linked it to the threat of it derailing the economic recovery. In contrast to the PDECat, the PP is openly capitalizing on the measures of fiscal consolidation and structural reforms of recent years, and presented a scenario of economic progress and growth threatened by a group of rebels who would bring Catalonia and Spain to disaster. It is undeniable that the claim is effective if you don't take into account that Catalan society, the businesses that export and those that compensate every day for a lack of infrastructures, are the same who have laid the foundations for an economic takeoff. They also know that what Rajoy calls "the absolute priority of the Mediterranean corridor" is an aide to exports that has been requested time and again to the point of irritation, which will never arrive and instead will be routed through Madrid, all this while the Barcelona commuter train service doesn't even meet minimum standards.

Economists often talk about an outside observer, a Martian able to analyze the economy objectively. Our Martian would have seen two worlds at the Circle. One political, and one economic in which the independence process doesn't seem to interfere, in contrast to apocalyptic announcements.

The Martian would have seen businesspeople who are more optimistic than last year, who have survived the resizing of companies and seen renewed growth. Who export and are concerned about access to qualified labor for the digital economy and for their ability to react to voracious and instantaneous markets. Nobel Prize winner Jean Tirole gave them some very interesting ideas in his presentation. We are in a full-blown digital revolution, which is breaking the relationship between worker and workplace and is causing rapid job destruction. He said to politicians that short-term contracts undermine training because business owners invest in it less, and urged them to "protect the worker and not the workplace". As always in the Cercle, some 19th century businesspeople coincide in the same dialog with some from the 21st, with ways of communicating that say everything about their companies. As in previous editions, women remain chronically absent from the debates. The future is now, and we are running behind.

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