Immigration: TINA 2.0

The Catalan population has gone from 6.2 million in 2000 to 8.2 in 2026. This is an extraordinary growth in the European context that has put access to housing and school under strain; in the first case due to increased demand, and in the second due to the sudden alteration of the student body's cultural composition. This is not a completely unforeseen change, as in 2002 Idescat published projections whose "medium-high" scenario has proven surprisingly accurate, but it is also true that this figure was between a "low scenario" of 6.7 million and a "high scenario" of 8.9.The latest projection by Idescat – published in 2024 – states that the Catalan population will be between 8.1 and 9.9 million in 2050. This is a very wide range, as it means that the population could either begin to decline or continue to grow very rapidly. In this context, the Proencat document, which guides decarbonization policy, predicts it will be 8.6 million, below Idescat's 'medium scenario'.Proencat, which guides decarbonization policy, predicts it will be 8.6 million, below Idescat's 'medium scenario'.However, and for whatever reasons, what has become popular is the prediction that Catalonia will reach 10 million inhabitants in 25 years. Minister Sílvia Paneque ("Catalonia will soon have 10 million") and deputy Elena Díaz ("The Catalonia of 10 million is not unviable") have repeatedly referred to it; President Illa has also done so, albeit more cautiously. Deputy David Cid, from Catalunya en Comú, has referred to it as a scenario that is not only probable but desirable ("We are 8 million, and if we are 10, better"). On the other hand, Oriol Junqueras has considered it a less attractive scenario ("The priority is not to be 10 million").It is clear that the most important thing that has happened in Catalonia in the last 25 years is demographic growth; much more than the independence process, for example. Obviously, if in 2050 Catalonia has around 10 million inhabitants, demographic growth will again be the most important thing that has happened. Consequently, preparing for it (as proposed by Illa, Paneque or Díaz) is more than justified.

However, what is surprising is that in our political ecosystem no one seems inclined to ask the Catalan population what scenario they want. This is especially surprising in the cases of Catalunya en Comú and the pro-independence parties.Let's remember that Catalunya en Comú is the daughter of the 15-M movement and the slogan “ they do not represent us ”, referring to the political parties that had managed Spain since the Transition. In contrast, the movement proposed an assembly-based organization and participatory democracy: decisions were to be made directly by the people. Why, now, do its leaders not think of asking the Catalan people to express themselves on what population Catalonia should have in 2050?Regarding pro-independence parties, we recall that they justified the referendum as an exercise in “democratic radicality”, which implied ruling that transcendental decisions should be made directly by the people.An absurd idea? On June 14, the Swiss will vote on exactly this: whether Switzerland should exceed 10 million inhabitants or not. I don't think we should get lost in disquisitions on the chances this referendum has of succeeding (even though polls give it a significant advantage, only one in 10 of those of popular initiative win), nor on the character of the party proposing it (more than suspected of xenophobia); what matters is that a country in our vicinity – this one indeed radically democratic – is about to do so.I fear that the most forceful mental obstacle is a new version of TINA from about fifty years ago. Let's remember that “There is no alternative” (“There is no alternative”) was a phrase Margaret Thatcher often repeated to justify the dismantling of the social democratic system built since the post-war period: the deregulation of markets and the privatization of public services. This argument was adopted by the European left throughout the 1980s: Tony Blair, Mitterrand, Schröder, González, etc., with regrettable consequences for the popular classes. Now we are told that immigration is inevitable because fertility (ours and others'), climate change, or the forces of global capitalism determine it so: TINA 2.0. In reality, and as Hein de Haas explains very well in one of the most lucid books on the subject (How migration really works), migrants go where jobs are created for them. Therefore, and in proportion, for every migrant who arrives in the Basque Country, two arrive in Catalonia. How much immigration we will receive and what population we will have is, therefore, in our hands.