Catalans should not be deceived nor made to fall for anything: the strike by the security control workers at Barcelona's El Prat airport, which until now has been intermittent but from this Monday will be indefinite, and which the Spanish government plans to resolve by mobilising Civil Guard agents to replace the workers of Eulen, is, above all else, a great failure of the Ministry of Fomento (Public Works & Transport), of the semi-public company Aena, of the Spanish airports' centralist system, and a total rejection of the system of concessions through cronyism, of ineffective managers yet with good contacts within the government, and who for many years have shown nothing but absolute contempt towards El Prat airport.
First it was Iberia and then Aena. Or first it was Aena and then Iberia. What difference does it make? Because the only truth is that first, the first for everything, has always been Madrid's Barajas airport. And the attitude of both Aena and Iberia is not that it has been indifferent to the issues of Barcelona airport: it has been overtly hostile and unjust. Only the market has helped El Prat airport. The only thing that could not be controlled (totally) from the Ministry of Fomento. Aena made record profits, 50% of which came from Barcelona; Eulen, the security company, also wanted to increase the profits of a contract almost without margins.
But what is most serious is that Aena allowed it all to happen. It knew it had a powder keg in Barcelona for the increase in air traffic, but it looked the other way. At the head of the company, José Manuel Vargas, an executive who hasn't shown his face at all, despite being the cause of the shambles. What does it take for a minister to get stuck with a company's mess after just six months in the post? Undoubtedly the contacts of the president of Aena, many of them forged during his stage as CEO of the Vocento media group, and also his astuteness to disappear from the scene. Not even a press conference, and his impassiveness in the face of a situation would, in any normal country, have required his immediate resignation on behalf of the Government.
The Civil Guard will be at El Prat from this Monday lending its services to something that is not its responsibility, and which it already supports within a preconstitutional decree. The unions, for their part, are reproaching the Spanish government for its attempts against their right to strike, and the passengers, meanwhile, will pay for the inefficiency of a state and the inability of its public agents.