'Quo vadis', Barcelona?

I want to start by quoting the last great exponent of the most illustrious (and now ancient) school of political thought of our Peninsula: the Galician School. "Catalans do things." A simple phrase, more sophisticated than it seems and profound in its misty ambiguity at water level in the Atlantic estuaries. Pure fog. Without "getting into politics" (or getting too much into it) the author does not make it clear whether many or few things are done in Catalonia. They must do something. But of course, the phrase suggests that it is no longer easy to understand well what they do. What a mess.

And although it is true that they do something, the editor of this medium asks me for a plateau Madrilenianism, so it's time to reformulate the wise man from Pontevedra with the dryness that 600 meters above sea level provides: we know that Catalans do things, but it is hard to understand what and, above all, why. Catalans set up things (though fewer and fewer), do some things (though they are increasingly performative) and think things, though we are increasingly less interested in them because they do not provide as much value as they should. Their relative weight has been stagnant or in decline for decades.

You have a problem and it's not called 3%, it's called competition and talent. Barcelona is growing dwarfs and its national and international competition is increasing in a context where storm clouds are looming on the horizon and this is very dangerous. Barcelona's problem should not be sought in Madrid but in the heart of its system. The "Barcelona system" has been dragging a gradual industrial decline since the oil crisis of the 70s that has de-structured its raison d'être. The model is dead and hackneyed phrases like "reinventing ourselves" fall short to understand the challenge we have ahead if we want the city not to end up in 30 years in a scenario similar to that of Marseille, Genoa or Naples.

Cities whose cosmopolitan and commercial essence around a large international port disappeared long ago, and where their inhabitants live engrossed in the scenario of what was once a thriving city that set the pace and agenda of their countries. They live in the theater of a city that has died. In a fiction. That is not Barcelona's scenario today, but many glimpse it on the horizon and the nerves of the last decade were good proof of it.

These things take time to notice, but the heart attack happened 40 years ago. The heart has stopped and all attempts to revive it: Olympics, Forum, Estatut, Procés... have failed. If seceding for a few seconds was the last country project, it seems that now the generalized recipe is to expel outsiders. However, both trying to leave oneself and trying to remove others will result in another failure. Salvador Illa came to Madrid six months ago to talk to us about "a model of shared prosperity", but for that to be more than a slogan, the only realistic option left is a transplant.

Reinventing oneself, being the Denmark of the south, the Holland of the Mediterranean, the European Singapore… These are Lampedusian proposals, which deliberately avoid a correct diagnosis, because for some, the remedy might hurt more than the disease, leaving many of those who know how to do nothing else but what they have done all their lives out of the game.

"The Spanish State, from its offices and Madrid cenacles, was, to a large extent, the main supporter of Barcelona's economic boom"

However, the danger of not diagnosing adequately and of continuing to do the same old thing (even if in other ways), is that the results will be the same. And one must fear those who benefit from the ship sinking while they have a guaranteed place in the lifeboat. As with Madrid politicians who bet on organizing Olympics and wonderful café con leche, all these boutades have something of necrophilia. They do not seek a sincere diagnosis. They think on each occasion that, this time, the results will be different. They will not be, and the menu offered by the restaurant will shrink faster than Pedro Ximénez unless the level of talent increases enough to propose an intelligent strategy in line with the reality of a 21st century that is turning very much against us.

Today, guidelines are needed because Europe is a ship that is increasingly taking on water, and we have already entered the storm of a crumbling international order. Will there be lifeboats for everyone? Would anyone sign today that the European Union will remain what it is today in 2050? Are we sure that we will not see protectionism return within Europe as we already do (by force) towards China and the United States?

In fact, ironies of life, that 1970 agreement to open our market was the great contribution of the Cercle d'Economia and largely triggered the legal and economic structure that sustained Barcelona's economic development model. Because until the signing of the Preferential Trade Agreement with the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1970, which reduced tariffs and eliminated trade barriers before accession to the European Communities in 1986, from the mid-19th century the State's economic policy was aimed at maximizing profits in the main development poles. Yes, the Spanish State, from its offices and Madrid cenacles, was, to a large extent, the main supporter of the economic boom of Barcelona and Bilbao at the cost of turning the rest of Spain into a kind of internal colony...

All this ended in the 1970s. Then, oh paradox!, it was access to autonomy and the "coffee for all" that allowed the rest of Spain to become independent from a Catalonia whose economic model drained the material and human resources of the rest. Centralism always suited Barcelona well. My grandfather, a merchant in the building lighting sector, explained it to me very clearly: "since we have industrial estates and stopped going to Barcelona to buy everything, even nails, in Catalonia they don't stop protesting." The liberation of "coffee for all" and the massive entry of French, German, British, and Italian industrial competition in 1986 dealt the final blow to the captivity model of a productive system that had been conceived from an addiction to tariffs. Maragall and Pujol understood this perfectly.

In the late 80s, Catalunya still had the economic and human capital to undertake in time the reform towards a global and purely service-based economy. And both put in motion the measures to make it possible. The first, with a project of functional transformation of Barcelona, using the Olympics as an excuse. The second, using language policy as a disguised tariff that raised the barriers to entry into the Barcelona system for professionals from outside, while allowing its own to compete in the rest of Spain and Europe on equal terms.

"Barcelona is growing dwarfs in a context where storm clouds are gathering on the horizon"

It's not that professionals from the rest of the country were worse, they simply had far fewer resources and more competition. Catalans "did things" with much more budget and with their own ecosystem in Barcelona. And now they also "did things" in the incipient ecosystems of others. But we all know that after an initial economic boom, tariff recipes usually come with very expensive bills. 40 years have passed and the inertia ran out long ago. The others have also learned to do things and neither living off the rents of a booming past, nor betting on a model that continues in that direction of "all mine and all yours that I can" will change the results, no matter how much some see in singular financing the answer to their public spending imbalances. As with the foral Euskadi, betting on continuity will mean that structural problems and stagnation will also continue.

Barcelona still has plenty of capacity to evolve (as it already does) and change its engine. In the midst of a transformation process, the city has the main startup ecosystem in Spain and the fifth ecosystem in the EU, complemented by good business schools and young people with knowledge and capital to risk. It is the second city worldwide in the growing video game sector. It holds the first European position in the pharmaceutical industry (third worldwide) and the second European position in health technology.

But its national and international competition increases. As I said at the beginning, Barcelona is growing dwarfs in a context where storm clouds are looming on the horizon and this is very dangerous. Although it still surpasses them, it competes in the technological sector with cities like Prague, Warsaw or Tallinn, yes, Tallinn… Cities that are also emerging technological centers in Europe. They are not in many cases as large —in absolute terms— as Barcelona, but they have strong growth, interesting specializations, and competitive advantages (costs, local talent, geographical position) that make them real competitors in the European tech market. There is no Barcelona Revolut.

Its port competes with those of Trieste, Genoa and Marseille, much closer to the European heart in the Blue Banana, and its volume of movement is lower than that of Algeciras and Valencia (the port of Madrid). In fact, Valencia's historical skepticism regarding its connection with Barcelona is due to the fact that their ecosystems and economic strengths do not complement each other well: port, tourism, banking, automotive industry. They compete in a zero-sum game in the same sectors.

"It's time to flee from projects that aspire to self-absorption"

The same happens with Zaragoza and Palma. In the past municipal elections, Xavier Trias spoke of turning Barcelona into the logistical hub of the Iberian Peninsula… Did he want to eat up the capital of Aragon? Did he even think about it? And what about Palma? Have we so quickly forgotten that Spanair was bought with public money, moving its operational headquarters to Barcelona, only to go bankrupt shortly after? (then some criticize the Madrid ways…)

That lack of interest in complementarity with its neighbors, that centuries-old pretension of wanting to keep everything, is precisely what I mean when I speak of self-absorption. "Catalans do things" yes, but it gives the impression that they only think of themselves. And this is a source of widespread and constant skepticism towards their system and their elites.

Furthermore, unlike Madrid, Barcelona has not found a linguistic balance that allows it to take advantage of all the economic benefits and tailwinds that Castilian offers as a global language. This article does not intend to assess the reasons for such a complex issue, but the reality is that it is increasingly becoming a more unfriendly place in that sense and, unfortunately, in others as well. Before the summer, a diplomat from one of the three most important countries in Europe told me during a visit to his embassy that the Barcelona consulate reported the most passport thefts in the entire world. That is to say, that to the legal insecurity and suffocating regulatory excess (in 2024 Catalonia approved 50 laws compared to Madrid's 7), real insecurity is added.

And returning to its elite, it is much more hermetic and causes much more endogamy in the generational relays of important positions than those of other places whose economies are on the rise. In fact, another personal anecdote, a private banking account manager recently made the following comment to me: "my clients in Barcelona are very important companies, but when I go there I find that their financiers have a much lower level than that of the Catalans in Madrid." And it is that in Barcelona, surnames weigh a lot. Too much. This was explained in his report "Reversal of economic fortunes: Institutions and the changing ascendancy of Barcelona and Madrid as economic hubs" in 2020 by the professor of the London School of Economics Andrés Rodriguez-Pose, who also warned that "Barcelona could become the Birmingham of Spain."

"We need its system not to be seen as a zero-sum rival in Zaragoza, Valencia, Palma, Malaga, Madrid"

The previous entry ended with the following question: "What does Barcelona have to propose and contribute to (...) Zaragoza, Valencia or Palma? And to Malaga, Bilbao or… Madrid? These are the questions hidden behind the big question to be resolved: What are we and what do we want to be. Answering these questions is not easy, but it is necessary." Well, I believe that before starting to prepare the menu of what can be offered, it is worth stopping to reflect on the capabilities of the "restaurant". That is, to make a small diagnosis of where Barcelona stands.

I think it's not about becoming more Trumpist than Trump, but about understanding that we need critical mass to survive in a world that is already Trumpist. We have to be serious and wake up. That mass is given to you by connecting well with the rest of Spain, because the Singapore of the Mediterranean makes sense in a strait like Malacca, or perhaps Gibraltar? But it makes no sense surrounded by countries like France or Italy, with larger ports and industries and with great potential for their rulers to increase their Le Penist tendencies. It's time to flee from projects that aspire to self-absorption. To "go it alone out there" ---as Maragall said of Madrid---. In short, to fall back into the trap of Icarus, into which those who persist in the daydream that they owe everything they have to themselves have fallen so many times.

"You do things, but we have to start knowing what you do and how those things benefit us"

The master lines, the strategic objectives of the transformation that Barcelona is experiencing, need to be defined. Where is it going? To do this, we must start by knowing "what we are and what we want to be." And, even if it annoys or pisses off more than one, almost by imposition these master lines force us to look again, and constructively, towards the south of the Pyrenees and the Ebro. Because with 170 billion euros of GDP, the metropolitan region of Barcelona is far behind the 300 billion of the metropolitan region of Madrid or the 400 billion of Milan and, of course, the 800 billion of Paris.

Barcelona needs to find a project that reconnects it with the rest of Spain, to generate joint interests that bring energy and wealth to the rest of the cities and that these bring energy to itself. And in the rest of Spain we need Barcelona. You do things, but we have to start knowing what you do and how those things benefit us. We need your system not to be seen as a zero-sum rival in Zaragoza, Valencia, Palma, Malaga, Madrid. But rather, as in the League, let's find a way to create a positive-sum competition. That makes everyone's pie grow. And that Barcelona DF be, along with Madrid DF, the other side of the coin of our prosperity.