A chronic deficit in infrastructure that punishes Catalonia
One of the most important things that Foment del Treball does every year is to calculate the infrastructure deficit that Catalonia suffers from in order to denounce underfunding that particularly penalizes the competitiveness of the Catalan economy. The figure is obtained in a very simple way. The minimum investment that would correspond to Catalonia is calculated based on a percentage of GDP, which they set at 2.2%, and it is compared with the real figure, which is always lower. And if a sufficiently long period of time is taken, for example from 2009 to the present day, the resulting figure is scandalous, close to 50 billion euros. And if we add the cost of living, the figure climbs to 60 billion.
It is often joked that there are only two things constant in the Universe, the speed of light and the Catalan infrastructure deficit, but the reality is that no matter how much this issue has been on the table for more than 20 years, it has never been reversed. Not even with governments that depended on Catalan forces, such as those of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero or now that of Pedro Sánchez. There are causes that are not directly attributable to Madrid, such as Catalonia's complicated orography, special environmental sensitivity, or excessive bureaucracy, which sometimes delay tenders and projects, but what is indisputable is a lack of political will from the Spanish governments, which have always wanted to avoid any accusation of favoring Catalonia over other territories.
The grievance is so profound that when the Statute was negotiated in 2006, a clause was included whereby for seven years the Spanish government would be obliged to invest in Catalonia the equivalent of its weight in GDP, that is, around 18% of the total regionalizable investment. The Constitutional Court considered this clause illegal and annulled it, so it was only effective for one year. Afterwards, Pedro Sánchez's governments have wanted to approach this figure, but then Catalonia has encountered another problem, which is a very low execution compared to other territories, especially Madrid.
In reality, the Spanish state has had a very clear infrastructure policy since the restoration of democracy: it was about building a radial network, with a very powerful center in the center of the Peninsula acting as a communications node, and a subsidiary periphery of this center. The problem is that this has been done at the expense of curtailing the growth possibilities of the particularly dynamic and export-oriented areas of the Mediterranean coast, as evidenced by the exasperating slowness of the works on the Mediterranean Corridor.
This is a crucial issue, and anything done to monitor the Spanish government will be insufficient. Therefore, it is not well understood that a Catalanist party like Junts would reject the proposal to create a State-Generalitat consortium to monitor these investments. Because now is the time to squeeze the maximum influence of Catalan votes in Madrid, as in a year and a bit it may already be too late.
