If last week the prophets of Catalonia's economic decline of crashed head-on into the latest data on the growth in the Catalan GDP and the comparison with those of Spain and the EU, then this Monday they may have found themselves face to face with the study published by Startup Heatmap Europe which places Catalonia and Barcelona as the largest hub for emerging companies in southern Europe, ahead of the large metropolitan poles of cities like Paris, London, Madrid and Amsterdam, and only surpassed by Berlin. All this, in an environment of sustained growth in startup numbers that has passed the test of the pandemic period with distinction, registering an increase of over 25% in firms during this time, to achieve the promising total of 1,902 emerging companies in Catalonia.
Both the good health of Catalonia's GDP and the evolution of its startups are positive announcements, which, if the pro-independence politicians were smarter, they would go round repeating over and over again. But stubborn as they are about showing off their miseries to counteract the adversary, they forget to spread the good news, and thus sow doubts as to whether what really interests them is to propel the country forward, the supposed reason for which they decided to form a government. There is a time for everything and a moment for every battle, say those who see politics beyond their own interests, trying to take into account how the citizens will benefit. Too often in Catalonia there is the feeling that there is only time for short-term scrapping, and it gets forgotten that those on the other side are lapping up the playground fight between ERC, Junts and the CUP.
If the startup statistics are good, the record for annual investments secured has also been broken, to reach 1,479 million euros, 246% higher than the volume of investment raised in 2020. In an increasingly global world, 25% of the workers in these types of Catalan companies are foreigners and 20% of the founders are too. All this reinforces the idea of an increasingly global emerging pole that is reflected in the fact that 47% of the sector's total turnover is from international customers. If we add these data to last week's GDP news, which placed growth in 2021 at 5.9%, while Spain stood at 5.0% and the European Union at 5.2%, they are numbers that, while requiring prudence, should be valued very positively. Also as an incentive to persevere in the current direction.
The so often repeated "Catalan decadence" is nothing other than a discursive reiteration by those who, from the absolute control of the Spanish state, also from the Catalan propagandists who are always aligned, first turn off the tap and then repeat that there's no water coming out. In a political environment in which the goal is to choke Catalan growth by any means possible so that Madrid can be the only Spanish business pole, the thing that is really essential is to reverse their dependence on the Spanish governments of the day. If not, how can one explain that Catalonia's deficit of infrastructure investment by the Spanish state over the last 12 years is 35 billion euros, according to employers' association Foment del Treball?
This is the real problem facing the Catalan economy and Catalonia in general. Just as in the political sphere, the real problem is the decision by the Central Electoral Commission to remove the CUP deputy Pau Juvillà from his seat, taking upon itself competencies that it does not have as an administrative body, which are specific to the law courts. Until this is understood, Catalonia will continue being mutilated and its potential to take flight will be that of a chicken. Because there are shortcuts, and bridges of dialogue are not only not being built, they are being blown up.