Sánchez presents his antidote to a deserted, ageing and economically sunken Spain in 2050

MadridIn 2050 Spain has every chance of being a desert state, where 88% of the population lives in big cities like Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia, and the economy will not recover due to low productivity and a decrease in population, which will be significantly older - one in three Spaniards will be over 65 and for every person in this age group there will only be 1.7 of working age. 20,000 people will die every year due to rising temperatures, 27 million will lack water and young people will have very few job prospects. Spanish education could plummet and be even worse than Hungary's, since right now people with university degrees already have lower levels of reading comprehension and mathematical skills than high school graduates in the Netherlands, and in 30 years 3.4 million students might have to stay down a year and 2.2 million could drop out of school early

Faced with this scenario verging on the apocalyptic, the Spanish government has elaborated its antidote to reverse the situation in the prospective plan Spain 2050 (read the full text here or the summary here), led by Pedro Sánchez's guru, his chief of staff, Iván Redondo, and presented this Thursday by the Spanish president at a large event in the auditorium of the Reina Sofía Museum. A prospective exercise that has already begun in countries like France and Finland and seeks to imagine the future in an optimistic outlook after pessimism has been dominant since the 2008 crisis. Sánchez has called for an "ambitious" but also "realistic" vision of the future that awaits us and avoid concentrating on the short term. The study consists of 676 pages and has been prepared by a hundred prestigious researchers, who have worked disinterestedly for a year "with independence and freedom" to point out the challenges and opportunities Spain will face over the next 30 years.

It should be borne in mind that Spain 2050 comes after Sánchez focused much of the last year on presenting his project for the country for six years, beyond the end of the legislature in 2023, with the help of European funds. It is what he has called the Resilience Plan, and which has allowed him to carry out a tour throughout the State to present it and make a small announcement - depending on the current situation - in each place. A kind of campaign that will now be extended with the presentation of this new prospective plan in the 19 regions of the State, with the participation of autonomous governments and city councils - which "will have a decisive role" - and through bilateral meetings and round tables with representatives of the administrations, think tanks, business associations, unions, universities, foundations, NGOs, associations and parties.

The alternative to the Moncloa Agreements

Sánchez has announced the start of a "great national dialogue" on the future of Spain "in the coming weeks". A process that he wants to be "bottom-up", open to all citizens and institutions and that "will last for months". Because above all, he has emphasised that the study is a "living document" that must be enriched with a "free and plural debate" where "all ideas and positions" have a place and where a "shared vision" of what the new "Spain" must be is designed. It goes without saying that the document does not address the territorial debate from the perspective of the conflict in Catalonia, and even less so the questioning of the monarchy.

And the fact is that after the frustrated attempt to reissue the Moncloa Agreements last April, a way of trying to reach major pacts with a PP that is only looking to force a snap election, Redondo now seeks to draw the Spain of 30 years from now by appealing again to the consensus of the Transition. But it is no longer a top-down process, but now the hand is extended to organisations and civil society. Redondo is already turning his back on the PP with the aim of reviving Sánchez's term.

Sánchez's presentation comes at a moment of weakness, after the poor results of the Madrid elections and the crisis in Ceuta. The coalition executive keeps repeating that now is when the legislature really begins, with the mantra that there are only 89 days to reach the group immunity -with 70% of the population vaccinated-, and thus predicts the end of the pandemic. With the presentation of long-range plans, Sánchez's guru wants to give the impression of staying in power. Not in cain was it Redondo himself who announced the presentation of the plan on Monday in an article in El País,in which he already pointed out that it was "the first step towards a great national dialogue" because Spain cannot be left behind in "the race towards the future".

Working at 70

"It will not be easy," warned Sánchez on Thursday, who has clung on to the fact that if Spain has not stopped progressing since the end of the dictatorship, "it will continue to do so in the future". But the plan includes worrying prescriptions, such as the fact that people aged 70 and over will have to work. It is necessary to "overcome outdated stereotypes about old age, adapt jobs to the expectations and abilities of older workers, and facilitate the compatibility of pensions and work," says the plan, which calls for "adapting the work cycle to the increase in longevity".

In part the plan is aligned with some of the objectives that the Ministry of Labour has sent to Brussels, but it has new features, such as reducing the working week from 40 hours to 35 hours to better redistribute work among the population. It also encourages the role of workers in decision-making in their companies and in the distribution of profits to productivity.