Our world is the world. Barcelona's competition as a global economic capital has long not been played only in terms of the Iberian Peninsula, but is disputed in an international league that, for example, places it in the Top 10 of cities that host fairs and congresses. Pau Relat, the president of Fira de Barcelona, made this clear this week in the conversation we had with him in a new session of the cycle The New Barcelona-Moments Estel·lars.
And what if we believe it a little? This is the thought that was going through my head as I left the interview with him. Because it is true that the Catalan spirit has that thing of suffering for what others will say and not daring to assert itself too much, lest someone make fun of us or think who knows what. Collonades, as Josep Pla would say. But they are tics, in short, that constrain us, especially mentally.
It is clear that we also don't have to pull from that spirit of certain economic power (but not only) from can Madrid. There, perhaps too many eat one and tell twenty, but neither too much nor too little; Relat shares data that highlight Barcelona's past, present, and future leadership as a capital that attracts major events and talent from all over the world.
We are, then, at a stellar moment for contemporary Barcelona that is fiercely current and has special merit, even more so considering the decade of chained crises we have been dragging, and with the failure of ambitious national projects, especially led by a political class that for some time now too often adds bewilderment and little else.
"We never saw the continuity of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at risk," said Relat, who also had no problem openly sharing a fragment of a relaxed conversation with John Hoffman, the great promoter of the MWC, who once told him that he did not understand the Catalans' doubts about the continuity of this great event in the city. The conditions, qualities, and assets of the Catalan capital are difficult to match (surpassing them would be even more complicated) by other major cities in the world that aspire to compete as a venue for the most cutting-edge business and sectoral events in the field of congresses.
And what if we believe it a little bit? This is what the Fira team has done, which, a little more than twenty years ago, made a determined commitment to the public-private model and has known how to build consensus through proactivity and good management. And they want, of course, to continue growing; now, with America and Asia in their sights. To this challenge, I would add the need for authorities who also think big (and sustainably, as one thing does not exclude the other) in debates like the one we recently had about the airport expansion, and thus be able to help, with a winning mentality, or, in the least optimistic (but also useful) of cases, at least, not putting spokes in a wheel that does not want to stop turning.