The Spanish economy will maintain a "robust" growth rate despite the conflict in the Middle East and international uncertainty, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, the institution that groups the world's advanced economies). The economic body has revised its growth forecast for Spain in 2026 upwards by one tenth, to 2.2%, in line with the estimate maintained by the Spanish government.

L’ on the state of the Catalan economy has the quality one would expect from the group of economists who have produced it. It conveys a strong message, albeit full of nuances. The aspect that interested me most is the conclusion (in Annex 5) that Catalonia has a segment of its economy – including industry – which, in terms of productivity, is comparable, for example, to the corresponding segment in the Basque Country. It reaffirms me in the conviction that we still have a solid foundation on which, if we set our minds to it and Europe helps, we can build a first-class economy. I also believe that this requires the spearhead of our development policies to pivot on the impetus of the most advanced and productive sectors.The report observes that we also have a segment of the economy with low productivity that has induced, and absorbed, in a short time, exceptional demographic growth. As a consequence, the averages for productivity (of labor, per hour worked) and income per person have widened the gap compared to the European average. I note that this does not necessarily mean impoverishment, neither for the native population nor, obviously, for immigrants. I also agree that a country's income per person is more important than absolute income, but, even so, size matters. At least in Catalonia, it dilutes the weight of debt and increases political weight.

It is undeniable that the Catalan and Spanish economies are growing. On a macroeconomic level, the trend in gross domestic product (GDP) is positive, especially when compared to neighboring eurozone countries. Not even the war in Iran, which has had less impact than expected, has pushed these economies down from their leading positions in terms of growth.

The Fènix Report has been a very healthy wake-up call about the seriousness of the trajectory of the Catalan economy in recent years and in the last generation, with a GDP per capita that continues to drift away from the European average (twenty percentage points in the last twenty years –from 114% to 94%). 

Let's think for a moment about the work behind the Phoenix Report, published this May. Six economists of undisputed prestige —Xavier Cuadras Morató, Jordi Galí, Modest Guinjoan, Guillem López Casasnovas, Miquel Puig and Jaume Ventura, coordinated by Xavier Roig— have had to agree on more than one hundred and twenty pages of analysis, accept external arguments, renounce their own personal positions, and put their academic and social capital at stake to achieve a greater good: to awaken a country. To hold it up to the mirror. To proclaim, with data and rigor, that the emperor has no clothes. And the king is naked because while Catalonia's GDP has grown above the European average in the last 25 years, GDP per capita has fallen 12 percentage points compared to our European partners. A quarter of a century ago we were six points above the European average. Today we are six points below. We have created wealth, yes. But we have distributed it among more and more people and in a worse and worse way. This is where we need to stop and think. Because there is a deep confusion, whether interested or naive, about what distributing wealth means. The State tends to understand distribution as providing more services to those who cannot afford them. And it is true that in an advanced society collective solidarity reaches where the individual cannot reach alone. But there is no better distribution of wealth than increasing people's wages. That fewer and fewer people have to depend on public resources to have a full life. That every worker can feel responsible for their own future and have control over their life. Jarvis Cocker, from Pulp, sang it with bitter irony in "Common People": "how does it feel to live your life without no meaning or control?" It is a song about the romanticization of poverty. Today it could be the soundtrack to a growing part of Catalan society. 

After decades dedicated to politics, the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg and then President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, delivered the best sentence of his life: "We all know what needs to be done, what we don't know is how to get re-elected once we have done it" (2007). The difference between knowing and doing, or between diagnosis and solution. And here we are, in the permanent struggle between what knowledge tells us, what the quality of public debate is capable of agreeing upon, and what is politically executed. We are talking about democratic politics, of course, which has many more limitations than autocratic regimes, which in the same way that they approve a five-year plan, make a minister disappear or make a dissident fly out of a window.

The Nobel laureate in economics Paul Krugman very well described the importance of an economic variable that is fundamental, although it may be unknown to most citizens. "Productivity is not everything, but in the long run, it is almost everything," he said. The fact is that growing is one thing, and progressing or prospering is another. Or, more simply, volume or quantity is one thing – gross domestic product (GDP) is increasing and in Catalonia it has already exceeded 300 billion euros – and quality is another, that is, how this pie is distributed among all those who live in a given economy.

The pharmaceutical company Esteve accelerates its scale-up. The multinational headquartered in Barcelona has closed the 2025 fiscal year with net revenues of 828 million euros, a figure that represents an 11% growth (based on gross turnover) compared to the previous year and confirms the solidity of its strategic plan. Although operating profit (ebitda) has soared by 19% to 151 million, net profit has stood at 72 million euros – a slight decrease of 4% – due to the impact of the dollar exchange rate and the absence of extraordinary financial income that marked 2024.

The truth is that in January everything looked good: sales growth, controlled inflation and interest rates falling. It seemed like a perfect year from an economic point of view. Today, however, it couldn't be further from reality. Oil at $100 – even if it was only for a month or so – has altered everything. You already know: when energy goes up, all prices go up. And, even though the conflict has cooled down, the price isn't coming down. It's raining on a wet field and we are amplifying inflationary pressure.For families, the impact is increasingly serious. Not only is there inflation, but Euribor has also risen and, consequently, mortgages will become more expensive. Furthermore, interest rates have not fallen and, right now, the best news would be that they do not rise again in the coming months.Meanwhile, stock markets have turned a page on the conflict and are once again marking historic highs. Two months ago it seemed like the world was ending and that no company was worth anything; today, on the other hand, the vast majority are, apparently, essential again. And it is here where the big unknown appears: what has really changed in just a few weeks? The conflict has cooled down, yes, but its effects remain fully in force in the form of high energy costs and pressure on prices. Rarely have I seen the stock market and oil at their highs at the same time.In the current context, not everyone is winning. Energy and banking benefit from high prices and high rates, while families, especially indebted ones, suffer the consequences. Inflation and the rising cost of mortgages reduce consumption and accentuate growing inequality. And, in the end, families keep taking economic blows, one after another, in a situation that has long been critical. I'm sorry, 2026 will not be better.

The Generalitat Valenciana intends to implement the 35-hour weekly working day for its employees on January 1, 2027. This was announced this Friday by the Minister of Economy, Finance and Public Administration, José Antonio Rovira, at the meeting of the General Negotiating Table for autonomous civil servants, statutory personnel, and workers.

Three of the major European economies –France, Italy, and the United Kingdom– are the three new headaches in European debt markets. The three countries are in the investors' crosshairs due to the high cost their governments pay to issue public debt, even though on paper and historically they are three states with solid economies.

The Generalitat de Catalunya, through Fira 2000, is negotiating the purchase of the offices in the administrative district of the Zona Franca from the company AXA, where various departments have been located since 2020. Three meetings have already taken place, and very soon, in May, there will be a fourth meeting. These negotiations aim to put an end to 11 years of shadows surrounding this operation promoted in 2015 by the owner of the Zona Franca land, Fira 2000, a commercial company whose majority shareholder (53.6%) is the Generalitat and which also includes the participation of the city councils of Barcelona and L'Hospitalet and the Diputació de Barcelona.

Economists are often asked to give an opinion on what we predict will happen in the economy, especially in light of the events we are experiencing. For my part, I usually answer that the correct answer is that I have no idea, but that out of courtesy to the asker I can anticipate, more from experience than from certain knowledge, that... I will not make jokes about economists' forecasts, but in our defense I will highlight the complexity of a moment in which geopolitics is the cause of uncertainties, in which what intervenes is a set of interdependent factors and, even more so, driven by the character who today leads the White House. This geopolitical framework has as a forecast more than a single economic variable, to which an element of risk can be associated. And when risks are chained, the probability of each forecast, which we obtain by multiplying by a value less than 1, becomes very low. Everything depends on everything! So that, despite the fact that today we have, unlike in the past, better forecasting tools and more reaction instruments than ever, these situations, increasingly complex and interconnected, are more difficult to anticipate. The safety net falls, logistics or the transport of goods breaks down, the value chain is lost and everything is paralyzed at once.This generates a certain frustration: economic science cannot anticipate, avoid, or sufficiently correct cycles or their effects on people's well-being! In the Middle Ages, science in general had less to say than today to set the world aright. Today, there are more things that were previously considered exogenous, which could not be influenced, that are no longer so. The world's misery, lack of water, hunger, loss of health, inequality: we know they are treatable and we can act on them. And even though we know we can, we don't. This cannot leave us with a clear conscience.We live in a world of exciting progress in the field of technology, but which frightens us later, seen up close; they generate as much hope as fear. Innovations that question many jobs, assets — as it has settled in. MAGA already has roots.

"The conflict in the Middle East will test the resilience of the global economy." No beating around the bush. The new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) revises its growth forecasts taking into account the impact of the war initiated in Iran.

Salvador Illa announced on Monday an initial aid package to address the effects of the war in the Middle East on the Catalan economy. Specifically, on Tuesday the Catalan government will approve the mobilization of €400 million in direct aid, tax breaks, and financing instruments to protect the country's businesses and families. The aid will focus particularly on transportation, agriculture, and fishing, the sectors most affected by the war, and the package is expected to be expanded depending on how the conflict evolves. This set of measures is in addition to... the protections deployed last week by the Spanish governmentThe aid that the Government plans to allocate to the economic sector, which will amount to up to 216 million euros, will be conditional on companies wishing to participate preserving jobs. The main pillars of the aid are an expansion of two financing lines between the Department of Economy and Finance and the Catalan Finance Institute (ICF), direct aid to the agricultural and fishing sectors, and tax exemptions. Business advisory and promotional services are also planned. The plan announced by Salvador Illa includes allocating 154 million euros to accelerate the energy transition and sustainable mobility. Regarding social aid, as the president explained at a business conference organized by ExpansionThe measures will be aimed at ensuring that the most vulnerable families can cope with food and energy expenses. To this end, the Catalan government will mobilize up to €30 million to create an open line of aid for families and to offer support to municipalities by reinforcing emergency social assistance, for example. Coordination of temporary layoff schemes (ERTEs) due to force majeure with the Spanish administration is also planned to protect job stability. "I make an explicit appeal for everyone to act in the general interest and the common good," said Illa, who demanded "responsibility" from large companies and the financial system.

The week begins in a very dangerous way. As you know, Trump has announced attacks on Iranian power plants if Iran does not unblock the Strait of Hormuz Iran has warned that its response will be to attack the desalination plants of the Persian Gulf countries. You attack my electricity, and I'll attack your water.

Whenever we try to understand complex situations, we try to find a reason that justifies how someone acts, or why something happens a certain way. Lately, even experts in politics, particularly international politics, are completely baffled as to the reasons behind this particular figure: any reasonable prediction based on the rules we previously knew has been shattered. Some, even with immense effort, have lined up all the facts, like an Excel spreadsheet, and tried to find a common thread. In Trump's case, at this point, we have to accept that everyone who has tried has failed.

Trump's word is worthlessBut it does come at a price, the price we all must pay for his decisions. Aware that The war with Iran has driven up oil prices and lowered stock markets.That is, that his voters have to pay more for gasoline and that his friends are losing billions in the stock market, Trump took the floor last night to say that The war is "virtually over" And that they are far ahead of the agenda they had set, that Iran "has already fired all it was supposed to fire." And Trump's words had the desired effect: the stock markets rose this morning and the price of oil fell. If this is a fluke that won't make a summer, Trump doesn't care. Yesterday he went for the coup, but he knows there are two things ordinary Americans hate: paying higher gas prices and having inflation erode their purchasing power, all because of a war that lacks the support of the vast majority. Consider that these days oil has reached its highest price in the last three and a half years, specifically in the summer of 2022, months after the war in Ukraine began, and that the cost of living is shaping up to be the major issue in the November elections. And we all know that when oil goes up, everything goes up.

Political disagreement could lead to another budget extension in 2026. Such a decision always comes at a price: the government's planned spending increase, should the draft budget be approved, would rise by €9.1 billion compared to the 2023 budget, the last one approved to date. This figure was provided by the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, in an interview with the Catalan News Agency (ACN). But how many of these millions would be lost if there is no budget? Sources within the Department of Economy, consulted by the Ara newspaper (ARA), emphasize that at least €1.5 billion is at risk. These are funds earmarked for new projects, not included in previous budgets, and which, therefore, would be excluded from the budget extension according to the law.

Catalonia is growing, but not for everyone. This is the main conclusion of issue 109 of the magazine. Economics NoteThe report, titled 'Towards a Model of Shared Prosperity', was presented this Monday by the Minister of Economy and Finance, Alícia Romero. The volume contains twelve articles that paint an uncomfortable picture: one in three Catalan children is at risk of poverty, while wealth is concentrated in the hands of the richest 1%. Why is this happening?