There are moments when a society has to decide whether it wants to limit itself to managing its difficulties or if it still retains the ambition to transform them. I believe that Catalonia is at one of these moments.
We live in an international context where confrontation is gaining ground, the zero-sum game is once again seductive, and stability and predictability, two essential factors for any business project and also for any country project, are increasingly scarce.
Faced with this scenario, there are two temptations. The first is to resign ourselves and assume that major decisions will always be made far from us. The second is to think that, to change things, one must first shake or destroy everything. I share neither one nor the other.
I prefer a third way: to regain confidence in our ability to build.
This was one of the reflections I wanted to share during Cecot's 31st Business Night. Catalonia has enough assets, talent, entrepreneurial initiative, and civil society to look to the future with much more confidence than we often grant ourselves. But this confidence also obliges us to ask ourselves what makes us unique, what strengths we want to preserve, and what transformations we are willing to promote.
"The challenge is no longer just knowing what is happening to us. The challenge is to move from diagnosis to transformation"
For too long we have been diagnosing some of the country's major problems. We know that access to housing conditions the development of life projects and also the ability of companies to attract talent. We know that we need infrastructures adequate for a competitive economy. We know that we must move towards a higher value-added industry and that demographic challenges will force us to address immigration, training, productivity, and the sustainability of our welfare model with serenity and responsibility.
The challenge, therefore, is no longer just knowing what is happening to us. The challenge is to move from diagnosis to transformation. But there is a second equally important challenge: it is not enough to do; it must be done well.
And doing it well means moving forward without renouncing the values that give meaning and solidity to a democratic society: respect for institutions and the rule of law, the balance between rights and duties, individual and collective responsibility, the dignity of people, culture, dialogue, and the ability to build consensus. The quality of a country is not measured only by its capacity to act, but also by the way it chooses to act.
And this requires solid institutions, a more efficient Administration, political consensuses that survive electoral cycles, and a civil society willing to assume responsibilities. It also requires competitive companies, because we can hardly sustain a robust welfare society without an economy capable of generating activity, employment, innovation, and resources.
"The future will not be determined solely by the context we have to live in, but also by our ability to modify it"
This is where I believe companies must also reclaim their social role. In Catalonia, talking about business is talking, above all, about small and medium-sized enterprises, about entrepreneurs, and about projects deeply rooted in the territory. That is why we are concerned that certain debates end up turning companies into adversaries even before having correctly identified the problem.
We need a much more demanding social debate. If we are concerned about wages, let's also talk about productivity and competitiveness. If we are concerned about housing, let's be able to agree on policies that truly expand the supply. If we are concerned about the sustainability of the Welfare State, let's also address issues such as absenteeism, taxation, energy costs, or the efficiency of administrations.
We cannot continue accumulating diagnoses without assuming responsibility for the solutions.
"Catalonia needs more strategic vision, more consensus, more self-esteem, and more execution capacity"
This also requires changing a certain way of doing politics. The denigration of the adversary, impossible promises, and seemingly simple solutions to extraordinarily complex problems can yield short-term benefits, but they weaken collective trust.
Catalonia needs exactly the opposite: more strategic vision, more consensus, more self-esteem, and more execution capacity.
At Cecot, we understand nonconformity in this sense. Not as the will to break for the sake of breaking, but as the refusal to accept as inevitable what we know we can improve. A nonconformity that is not content with demanding, but proposes; that does not wait for someone else to solve problems, but gets involved; that not only asks what needs to be done, but also how we can make it possible.
The future will not be determined solely by the context we have to live in, but also by our ability to modify it.
And this is probably the most important responsibility we have towards the coming generations: to leave them a country that has not given up deciding what it wants to be.