This Sunday evening, the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the great global event for telecommunications and technology, kicks off in Barcelona. In a politically and commercially shaken world by the aggressive diplomacy of Trump and his government sponsored by technology billionaires, the MWC in 2025 is still of greater interest than its usual appeal in the field of business, innovation and ethical debates on how far AI should penetrate. Where do we want to go, technologically and ethically? Where are Trump and Musk taking us? How is China reacting? What role does Europe want or can play in the development of telecommunications and its regulation? Barcelona will be the privileged stage for the global political and economic struggle.
More than 100,000 congressmen are expected to visit us and gurus and highly influential businessmen will land. The event will feature 2,700 companies, including Huawei, Samsung, Meta and Google. New additions include Alibaba Cloud, China Unicom, Databricks, Indra, KDDI Spherience, Kyocera, Liberty Global, Siemens, SquareTrade, Tencent Cloud, TransUnion and Ubiquiti. There are also 180 branches from 140 countries. With this deployment, Catalonia will once again assert its status as a hub The MWC is a technological and digital event in Europe. The synergies for Catalan entrepreneurs are crucial. The economic impact of the MWC for the city is also highly significant, estimated at around 550 million euros, a figure already reached last year. The MWC has also agreed to remain in the city in principle until 2030. Next year will be the twentieth anniversary.
There is no doubt that this is a success for Barcelona, and more specifically for its trade fair institution, and for Catalonia. A success that, without a doubt, must continue to be managed well, thinking both in terms of progress and economic development and the daily well-being of the people of Barcelona. The city is oversaturated with tourists. But if there are qualitative visitors, they are those of the congresses, with the Mobile at the forefront, together with a whole list of scientific, medical and business events led by Fira de Barcelona that are equally important. We must continue to welcome all this business and research talent in good conditions, which sooner rather than later requires the expansion of El Prat airport: only in this way will direct connectivity with America and especially Asia be guaranteed. It is an uncomfortable debate, but necessary. Just as it is essential to move forward on a solution to the housing crisis in Barcelona and the entire area, not to mention the whole of Catalonia. We must make the city's leadership compatible with the MWC and all that it means with respect for the environment (in the case of the airport) and the guarantee of decent housing. We must roll up our sleeves to find solutions that allow us to continue at the forefront of progress.
