Immigration skills? We've always had them!

The Catalan Institute of Statistics (Idescat) has just published "demographic projections" for the next decade in the form of three scenarios (it also makes projections up to 2074, but I don't find them interesting).

In the "High" scenario, the Catalan population would continue to grow at the same rate it has throughout the 21st century and would gain one million inhabitants; in the "Medium" scenario, it would grow at two-thirds that rate and gain more than half a million inhabitants; in the "Low" scenario, it would grow at the same rate as the Basque Country and would reach 8.2 million, gaining only 200,000 inhabitants.

I emphasize that these are projections, not predictions. Contrary to what has been published, Idescat isn't telling us what will happen, but what could happen. With this in mind, we must ask ourselves two questions: what is in our best interest to happen, and what and whom determines whether a particular thing happens. Let's answer them one by one.

From my point of view, there's no doubt that the best scenario is the "Baix" (Lower) scenario, and that the "Alt" (Higher) scenario would be an economic, cultural, and social catastrophe. It would be an economic catastrophe because the only way to gain population is through low-skilled immigration (skilled immigration, which also exists, is extremely scarce), which implies that Catalan productivity would continue to decline, and, as Paul Krugman says, "productivity isn't everything, but in the long run it is almost everything." It is significant that the only Spanish region where productivity has increased significantly is the Basque Country, where the population has grown very slowly. In a scenario where Catalan productivity does not increase, the welfare state is unsustainable, which must inevitably translate into painful cuts.

From a cultural perspective, it is enough to note that the number of Catalans who use Catalan as their "first language" would not be 33% now but 41% if the population had grown at the Basque rate, and would fall to 29% in the next decade in the "Alt" scenario. From a social perspective, our housing problems would become more acute than the possibilities of the ambitious public housing construction programs we are now preparing to implement.

Now we move on to the second question: what determines whether one scenario materializes or not.

A comparison of recent years in the labor markets of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and the Basque Country provides the answer. The Balearic Islands and Catalonia are two of the economies that (in relative terms) have created the most jobs in Europe, while the Basque Country is one of the economies that has created the fewest. In both the Balearic Islands and Catalonia, the driving force behind this creation has been tourism, which has increased from 10 to 15 million foreign visitors in the Balearic Islands and from 9 to 20 (!) in Catalonia. The development of some agri-food industries that employ low-skilled labor has also helped here. meat products in particularSince there was no local labor available in either the Balearic Islands or Catalonia, this massive job creation has resulted in an unprecedented influx of low-skilled labor in Europe.

Now, who determined that so many low-skilled jobs were created in the Balearic Islands and Catalonia? Exclusively the respective regional governments, by allowing, if not encouraging, the creation of developable land on the coast, the conversion of housing into tourist accommodation, and tireless promotion.

This means that the most important thing that has happened in Catalonia in recent decades, both economically and socially, and culturally—the transition from 6 to 8 million inhabitants—has always been in our hands. The political interpretation of this fact is both discouraging and hopeful.

It's disheartening because it implies a complete lack of responsibility. In the myriad of electoral programs, coalition agreements, government programs, and proclamations of all kinds that have followed one another during this turbulent period, no party or leader has raised the crucial question: how many of us should there be? This is, without a doubt, a resounding failure of Catalan autonomy that forces us to ask ourselves whether we deserve not what we aspire to, but what we already have.

But it's hopeful because it means it's in our hands to determine whether we'll see the "High," "Middle," or "Low" scenarios materialize in the next ten years. It's entirely up to us.

And what about the agreement on the delegation of powers in immigration matters? It's a matter of public order that I welcome, but it has nothing to do with what we're considering, because we won't have more or less immigration if the person enforcing the law is a Civil Guard or a policeman.