Empordà has been mythologized. It has been pampered. The media often talks about Cadaqués, Dalí, Josep Pla. Many people from Barcelona spend their summers there. The tramuntana is a wind with pedigree. Greco-Roman civilization reached us through Empúries: Manuel Brunet turned that beginning into the fable The marvelous landing of the Greeks in Ampurias. It is "the smiling plain" that Joan Maragall sang about in Enric Morera's sardana or the one that Jacint Verdaguer looked at from Mare de Déu del Mont to write the epic poem Canigó about the origins of the Catalan nation. The windy and rugged landscape of Alt Empordà and the abrupt and undulating landscape of Baix, with their small rural settlements, are a common theme in Catalan sentimentality, and the same can be said of the coves and beaches of the coast, which are so crowded.
But the reality of Empordà is far from this idyllic image. Far from it. Tourism monoculture has been taking its toll for a long time. Today, Alt Empordà is a leader in prostitution, in second homes (empty), in underutilized train lines (TGV) and poorly maintained ones (the conventional), in tiny villages (68 municipalities, 43% with less than 500 inhabitants), in immigration (the Catalan average of foreign population is 17.4%, Alt Empordà's is 25.38%, Figueres' is 28.17%, and Castellón de Ampurias' is 45%), in school dropouts, in marijuana production... We could go on.
In the book Converses de sobretaula al Motel (Editorial Gavarres), the former mayor of Figueres, Joan Armangué, and the journalist Xavier Febrés discuss these and other realities. Despite their forward-looking perspective, in search of hope, the resulting panorama is not at all encouraging. Rather, it is depressing. Social housing construction is at very low levels, for decades industry with added value has been neglected, and the same applies to the production of wind and solar energy. This week the Govern has presented the Territorial Plan for the Implementation of Renewable Energies (Plater) which sets tasks for municipalities and regions. Catalonia is at the bottom of the State in green energy production, and Empordà (both Alt and Baix) is at the bottom of Catalonia. How can this be? Windy regions without windmills. Sunny regions with very little photovoltaic production.
The former president Pasqual Maragall warned of the danger of an Empordà that, instead of moving towards the Tuscany model, opted for the Benidorm type. Maragall himself dreamed of this small country as the heart of a Pyrenees-Mediterranean euroregion that would unite North Catalonia and Occitania with Catalonia and the Valencian Country (and the Islands). It was about updating the idea of Catalan Countries with a European vision and ambition. Years have passed and no one talks about it anymore. The Pyrenean border continues to separate more than unite. The town of La Junquera is a place of pilgrimage for the French to go whoring (prostitution is forbidden in France) and to buy tobacco, alcohol, and gasoline at cheaper prices. It is true that Madrid and Paris have not believed in it (one only has to think of the historical delay of the Mediterranean Corridor or the non-execution of high-speed rail between Perpignan and Montpellier, where the AVE continues to run at conventional speed), but neither have Barcelona nor Girona. Armangué and Febrés adopt the concept of girocentrism coined by the journalist from Portbou Ramon Iglesias.
It will now be 50 years since the section of the AP-7 to the border was inaugurated, a motorway that is now collapsed. And it will be 25 years since the Parliament rejected the Roca Report (headed by Miquel Roca Junyent) to reduce the number of municipalities in Catalonia with the aim of moving towards more efficient and rational local governance: Empordà remains the paradise of parochialism that does not allow for good planning or governance. Misunderstood localism.
We could continue talking about pig farms, natural parks with under-resourced management, healthcare that collapses in the summer, culture and education... About the real Empordà that no one talks about. The critical and civilized dialogue of Armangué and Febrés is brave and necessary. Is anyone willing to take it seriously?
