This Wednesday, the XXXVI Meeting of the Cercle d'Economia has started, which, as a novelty, has changed its location. This annual event has abandoned its traditional headquarters in Sitges to debut at the W hotel in Barcelona, one of the bets of its current president, Javier Faus. A decision that has been applauded by the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, in her speech during the first day, who has wished for it to be maintained in future editions.
After not being able to be held in person a year ago and having to be limited to virtuality, the business meeting has been scheduled this time in both formats, without being free of strict protocols for in-person attendees. The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, has been the protagonist of the inaugural session, followed by Colau. This Wednesday's day has been completed with the round table of the executive president of Banco Santander, Ana Botín, the president of Inditex, Pablo Isla, and the president of Telefónica, José María Álvarez-Pallete, and the inaugural dinner, which was attended by King Felipe VI and paid tribute to businessmen Artur Suqué and Mariano Puig, who have recently passed away.
As it could not be otherwise, the return of the debates at the annual meeting of the Cercle d'Economia could only be marked by the crisis itself that has been experienced in this last long year. The first round table of this edition has served to expose the vision that corporations such as Banco Santander, Inditex and Telefónica have about everything that is to come after the impact of the coronavirus.
The potential of European funds has been one of the recurring answers from Botín, Isla and Álvarez-Pallete, to the questions of the moderator of the round table, the CEO of Puig, Marc Puig. "We have a great opportunity," Botín remarked, who advocated for relying on companies for their management. Álvarez-Pallete has also trusted in public-private collaboration as a mechanism to articulate the Next Generation, adding the need to allocate them to SMEs and to guarantee transparency in the development of projects. "For the first time, Europe has mutualized debt, we should feel proud," he said.
The risk of complacency has been the possible cloud that Isla has detected in the use of European funds. The president of Inditex has asked to face the necessary reforms for the Spanish economy to overcome this crisis and, furthermore, emerge strengthened. In that sense, Botín has called for reforming the tax system to impact the activity of technological platforms, which she also believes need to be regulated in terms of competition. For her part, the banker has pointed out that in this crisis, banking has not been a problem, but rather "has been part of the solution."
Beyond the possibilities that open up in the medium term, Botín, Isla, and Álvarez-Pallete have analyzed the changes that have occurred with this health, economic, and social crisis. "What we are seeing now is an exponential acceleration of what we were already seeing," Botín summarized. This translates into the establishment of virtual shopping, teleworking, or virtual education, trends that the three speakers believe will remain, although to a lesser extent than during the crisis. "The pandemic has been an enormous time machine; the fear of digitalization has been lost," Álvarez-Pallete added. According to the president of Telefónica, companies will not return to 100% in-person work, but there will be much more flexibility than before. "There are things that are not digitalizable, such as corporate culture and the way of doing things," he said to make it clear that he believes interaction and physical spaces are still valid.
Quarterly economic growth of up to 9%
Botín has also defended in-person work, but explained that "she no longer feels guilty" for working from home on Fridays. "We need to be together to create, but from home, you can be very productive." The president of Santander has also predicted strong growth for Spanish GDP in the coming quarters: "We will be off the charts, Spain can grow between 7% and 9%." Álvarez-Pallete has corroborated this statement: "there is a lot of accumulated savings, growth estimates will fall short."
At a round table with a male majority, Botín did not miss any opportunity to highlight the glass ceilings that still exist in the business world. Everyone agreed on the need to overcome them, but Botín was the one who specified how she believes it should be done: by solving the "maternity tax" that hinders women's careers when they become mothers.