Until recently, there was a political consensus in Catalonia in favor of immigration. On the right, because immigration provides a labor force—at home, in the fields, and in factories—without which wages would have to be raised, processes would have to be automated costly, or the government would have to fold. On the left, for the sake of solidarity and the history of the working class during the 20th century.
Catalonia was no exception, as these types of positions were common in our region in one way or another. However, they have long been shifting toward much more restrictive positions everywhere. On the left, the Scandinavian social democratic parties were the first to do so when employers began recruiting foreign workers to circumvent collective bargaining agreements. Today, the Danish government—one of the few left-wing governments in Europe—maintains the "jewelry law," passed in 2016 at the behest of a right-wing government and which caused so much scandal outside Denmark. This law allows for the seizure of jewelry from asylum seekers in the country to finance the costs.
However, the most radical mutation is taking place on the right.
Even now, the think tanks Orthodox politicians—from the IMF to the Bank of Spain—continue to sing the praises of immigration, but they're late, because the parties are transitioning from a liberal right to a conservative right with the goal—generally successful—of winning the working-class vote and, in general, the popular vote. The most paradigmatic case is obviously Trump, who is on the verge of making 2025 the first year in US history with negative migration flows, much to the despair of many businesspeople who have based their businesses on illegal immigration.
Perhaps the most surprising thing is the slowness with which this process is reaching Spain and Catalonia, given that it is the territory that since the beginning of this century has been experiencing the most intense immigration process: while the French, German and Italian populations have grown respectively by 13%, 2% and 4%, the Spanish and Catalan populations have grown respectively by 2%.
I say that the change is coming very slowly after reading the PP's migration plan—presented by Núñez Feijóo in Barcelona this week—and rereading the "roadmap" presented by Junts a year ago, to which I add their proposal on protected housing presented last week.
The PP's 10 points and Junts' 16 are very similar, and are characterized by four things. First, they try to convey that they will bring order: one by centralizing powers and another by delegating them to the Generalitat (Catalan government); one by ensuring better border control and the other by creating a specific agency, etc. Second, they try to reassure their voters by assuring them that today's immigrants will be citizens like them tomorrow: that they will speak Spanish or Catalan, as the case may be, and that they will share common values. Third, and very timidly, both try to reassure their voters by assuring them that they will restrict immigrants' access to certain social rights: the minimum living wage in one case, access to protected housing in the other. Finally, both avoid unsettling employers by assuring them that they will continue to find the immigrants they need to fill their vacancies.
It's inevitable to conclude that this balance between reassuring voters without unnerving business leaders is doomed to failure. Not because the balance is impossible. per se, but because it is impossible at the rate of immigration we are experiencing. Consequently, I do not think it is likely that the respective proposals will succeed in overcoming the electoral expectations of Vox and the Catalan Alliance, which is their real objective. I therefore foresee that the right will move towards greater restrictions on immigrants' rights, which are the positions of Vox and the Catalan Alliance to the extent that they can be identified (which is far from easy). This is the wrong path, because giving immigrants fewer rights will not help to pacify coexistence, but quite the opposite. It seems that Pujol has already warned Junts that this option – the opposite of the one he personally embodied – would lead to disaster as a society.
In short, the right is moving, but it's still far from where it inevitably must go: telling the entrepreneurs who specialize in cheap labor that they'll have to let go. And, of course, to stop supporting projects like Hard Rock, because it's impossible to both blow and suck at the same time.
