"We want to be the engine of Europe again": Catalonia seals the pact to relaunch industry
The agreement between the Government, employers, and unions foresees an initial investment of almost €4.5 billion, which could be extended up to €5 billion
Barcelona“More industry, but, above all, of better quality”: Salvador Illa and the country's main economic agents have sealed this Monday the new National Pact for Industry. The roadmap until 2030 foresees an investment of almost 4,500 million euros in 190 actions comprising five major areas, such as innovation or employment. During his speech, the President of the Generalitat stressed that the agreement "is not a sectoral pact" but a "national and future pact". The text has been agreed with the two main employers' associations in the territory, Foment del Treball and Pimec, and the two majority unions, Comissions Obreres (CCOO) and UGT.
Specifically, the new National Pact for Industry is structured into two main sections: one that corresponds to a horizontal approach and another that is sectoral. The horizontal refers to those actions that are aimed at all industrial sectors, whether in innovation, infrastructure or training, while the sectoral foresees initiatives that focus on specific points considered to deserve "specific attention", such as the chip industry, dual technologies or artificial intelligence (AI).
Furthermore, although the agreement signed this Monday establishes an investment of 4,463 million euros, it also includes the will of all agents to be able to expand the plan's budget up to, "at least", 5,000 million.
to his report for the European Union, former Italian Prime Minister Mario DraghiInfrastructure, at the center
The agreement is structured through five main areas: sustainability and energy; quality employment; innovation and competitiveness; infrastructure and industrial land, and a fifth transversal area. However, of all of them, infrastructure is the one that accumulates the most investment, with 1,834 million planned until 2030. With this forecast, Illa has assured that the Government "has pressed the accelerator" in terms of infrastructure and, in addition to claiming that El Prat must become "an international hub and a benchmark for environmental sustainability", he has also spoken of improvements in the railway network. Furthermore, investments will also be concentrated in innovation (523.6 million); business dimension, investment and financing (475.1 million); industrial land (340.8 million), and training and accreditation of skills (272.6 million).
By departments, that of Territory is the one with the most investment allocated in this agreement, with 1,706 million until 2030, followed by that of Business and Labor, with 1,348 million, and the third place is for that of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food, with 706 million. Both the President of the Generalitat and the minister Sàmper have indicated that the agreement is structured around three objectives – productivity, sustainability and resilience – aligned with the proposal made in his report for the European Union by former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.
A Catalan high-speed network?
In the agreement ceremony, the unions CCOO and UGT and the employers' associations Foment del Treball and Pimec also participated, who celebrated the consensus between the parties in sealing the roadmap. Furthermore, the general secretary of CCOO in Catalonia, Belén López, has claimed that the pact takes into account the "concerns" of the country's male and female workers, and has assured that the agreement foresees an eventual Catalan high-speed rail network "with a public service vocation." For their part, the general secretary of UGT of Catalonia, Camil Ros, has positively valued that the new edition of the pact also includes the food sector and has claimed the role of industry as a tool for the integration of the immigrant population, as, he said, it already was in the 1960s in Catalonia.
From the company's point of view, the president of Pimec, Antoni Cañete, has assured that thanks to the employers' association, the agreement has "a small business perspective," while also being "more executable, more governable, and more connected to the productivity reality" of the territory. He also indicated that the pact reserves 60% of its resources for small and medium-sized enterprises. Josep Sánchez Llibre, president of Foment del Treball, has claimed that the National Pact for Industry promotes "more economic activity, more added value, more innovation, and more competitiveness."
