Elma Saiz applauds Catalonia's demands for powers in immigration.

BarcelonaThe Minister of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration and spokesperson for the Spanish government, Elma Saiz, vehemently defended the extraordinary regularization program announced by the Executive. In a conversation with the president of the Círculo de Economía (Circle of Economy), Teresa Garcia-Milà, she stated that "orderly and integrated immigration is the key to sustaining economic prosperity in the coming decades." In response to questions from Garcia-Milà, she applauded the fact that some autonomous communities, such as Catalonia, are demanding powers regarding immigration within the constitutional framework. She acknowledged that there are issues, such as healthcare and others, that require local management. Saiz participated in the Cercle after the organization published an opinion piece a few days ago calling for the regulation of migration flows and their adaptation to an economic model based on improving productivity. The minister, who congratulated the Catalan organization for opening the debate on the issue, noted that the people who will be eligible for regularization "are already here" and rejected claims by some political groups that the new arrivals will overwhelm public services. The data, she added, shows that they do not overwhelm public services, but rather "contribute to sustaining them." It is, in any case, the responsibility of public administrations to size public services according to the population, the Spanish government spokesperson said. She asserted that "when immigration is managed well, it is not a threat but an opportunity for growth and for strengthening democratic society."

He also explained that studies on the 2005 regularization process demonstrate that it had no negative effects; on the contrary, it improved labor relations and mobility and increased tax revenue. He also took the opportunity to reject the link between lower productivity and immigration.

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The minister highlighted the dynamism of the Spanish labor market, recognized by national and international organizations, and its capacity for integration. Saiz noted that immigrants play an essential role in the hospitality, care, and other sectors, but their presence is increasingly significant in other higher value-added activities. Population aging, she explained, is a structural phenomenon. Therefore, without migration flows, the working-age population would decline substantially, she asserted. Before the session, the minister stated that the planned regularization has "triple legitimacy." The first is that it builds upon the regularization implemented by the People's Party (PP). The second, of a social nature, stems from a popular legislative initiative. And the third, economic, is that it has the support of many business sectors, she affirmed. Garcia-Milà acknowledged that the planned extraordinary regularization is necessary, but advocated for accompanying it with a genuine policy that includes more organized management of migration flows. In the opinion piece, the Circle called for the PSOE and PP to reach an agreement on immigration policy. The document, titled The need for a migration policy: production model, integration and social welfare He criticized the lack of a "real immigration policy" and the application "of a succession of reactive and fragmented responses," such as the regularization announced by the Spanish government, which he saw as necessary, but at the same time also as "the confirmation of a failure, which should not perpetuate past mistakes."