A few weeks ago, Joan Subirats warned us right here about what he called "the territorial tangle of the Generalitat"In short, the article addresses the fact that the Catalan government uses different maps depending on the subject matter and the confusion this creates. The article couldn't be more timely. Last November, at the initiative of the Catalan Geographical Society and the Catalan Society for Territorial Planning, the Institut d'Estudis Catalans hosted four sessions to discuss that the'
While acknowledging the underlying reason for the alert, I believe there's a confusion of concepts. On the one hand, there's the country's territorial organization, which corresponds to the system of provinces, veguerías (districts), comarcas (regions), metropolitan areas, municipalities, and decentralized municipal entities—God willing.-. Of The other is the territorial organization of the Generalitat administration. At the same time, within this latter aspect, it's important to clearly distinguish between the different levels: it's not the same to talk about the Government delegations, which correspond to the map of vegueries (administrative districts), as it is to talk about the basic organization of healthcare, education, or the police.
Clearly, there are points of contact, and it would be reasonable to strive for some correspondence, but perhaps this shouldn't be automatic. And above all, perhaps we should think very carefully about who adapts to whom. Because accepting the regional map and the map of veguerías as they are... –And let's not even mention the provinces, which are the real elephant in the room.–, This could mean maintaining an outdated map, even in terms of base administration.
We should also clarify the consequences of this map. I get the impression there's a widespread perception that the region dictates "where we should go." A very recent example is the law passed by the municipality of Aiguafreda del Vallès Oriental in Osona, which includes an additional provision clarifying that this change "does not alter the organization of the comprehensive public healthcare system of Catalonia nor the delimitation of the health regions in force at the time of the approval of this law. Therefore, the link between the Granollers Hospital Consortium and the North Metropolitan Health Region is maintained." This was surely important to many people in Aiguafreda, but it was completely superfluous. Several municipalities have as their reference hospital the one in a municipality outside their region. To give two examples: the towns of Baixa Segarra (Conca de Barberà region and Camp de Tarragona district) are included in the Penedès health region, and the basic health areas of Malgrat de Mar and Canet de Mar (Maresme region and Barcelona district) are included in the Girona health region.
Why is this happening? Probably because the territorial health division was made from bottom to top and autonomously from the territorial organization.the basic health areas They were established using very functional criteria: health sectors were created by aggregating areas, and health regions by aggregating sectors. During the pandemic, many people discovered they belonged to a health region, and that this didn't exactly correspond to the district and regional divisions. Since I believe the territorial division of healthcare, in general, is very well done, perhaps the problem lies elsewhere.
Would it be an oversimplification to make a new district and regional map coincide with all the divisions of the Generalitat administration? I'm not entirely sure. I think there's a Jacobin echo in that idea that doesn't quite convince me.the coexistence of different areas depending on the subject matter It shouldn't be a problem. The functional administration of the Generalitat is not the same as the territorial organization of the country.
And this is the crux of the matter. The administration is a complete mess. in its territorial aspect Because what we haven't really resolved is the organization territorial of the country. But this doesn't mean creating a single map, but rather understanding the country better. in their diversity of needs and, therefore, of instruments to address them. The current regional framework, which works very well in some places and does its job, may not be the right tool in other places, and there's nothing wrong with having different solutions for different realities.
