One of the most-repeated mantras of recent years has been the fragility of the Catalan economy supposedly due to the political upheaval and another, more recently, counting the moving of companies' registered offices as if they were really companies abandoning Catalonia. The problems with economic, as opposed to political, lies is that there are regular macroeconomic statistics which prove or disprove them.
It's worth paying attention to the progress of Catalonia's GDP within Spain's as a whole and not focus only on financial year 2017, but go back a few years. In this way, it can be easily seen that whilst in 2013 Catalonia's GDP was 18.8% of Spain's and in 2017 it was 19.2%. And in these five financial years it hasn't stopped growing tenth of a percent by tenth of a percent and all this in the midst of supposed political tensions which were going to be lethal for the Catalan economy, according to the official Spanish narrative. Another statistic: 19.2% is the highest percentage since 2000 and no other territory beats or equals it in volume or percentage.
Lies about the economy aren't different from lies about politics but they, patiently, can be refuted. It's true that, at first, Spanish media power had every chance of success, but with time things have ended up going back to normal.
In the last few hours we've seen more fake news about the cancelling of the fourth Barcelona World Race regatta which was to set off from the city in the coming months. Attempts have quickly been made to link the political tension with the cancellation and the existing financial crisis with political stability. After a few hours, Fundación de Navegación Oceánica (Barcelona's Ocean Sailing Foundation) rubbed salt into the wound. No Spanish budget having been passed given the lack of sufficient parliamentary support for Mariano Rajoy has been the main cause, given that it was needed for the event to be declared of "exceptional interest" and to bring about the corresponding allocation of money. Now they will work to hold it in 2022-2023.
Added to this was the disinterest from Barcelona city council and its mayor at a time when there were already seven teams signed up. But obviously, leading international projects hasn't been a priority for Ada Colau's government team during the three years they've occupied the city hall.