When I started, almost thirty years ago, the bureaucratic burden we were subjected to was smaller and allowed me to combine the work of the land and livestock with that of paperwork. Things went reasonably well for me and the company grew and diversified at a manageable pace. My parents and my partner joined, and with them, the possibility of processing and directly selling our products. We were still a small farm, of course, but there was work for everyone and, as we worked under the precepts of the motto that has governed all farmhouses for centuries, we managed to get by.If you don't know which slogan I'm referring to, it's because you have never enjoyed the privilege of being part of such a well-oiled production unit as the family structures of farmhouses. There is no specialization or a very strict division of tasks because where one doesn't reach, the other does, labor rights do not exist because they are not needed and schedules, leaves, or contracts are extemporaneous formalisms that do not quite fit with the dynamics of a job that is still done as it was done before laws and the regulation of economic activities entered our dining room.There is no sense of sacrifice because things are simply done when they need to be done. The one who sets the pace is not a wicked master who takes advantage of our effort, nor are we slaves to the castrating demands of a control chain designed to nullify individual freedoms in favor of their productivity. If the flock needs to eat, it is not the master's fault, nor is it the endless work of the garden, nor that it will rain the day after tomorrow and I have to spend three nights sowing to take advantage of the remaining moisture.The conditions are self-imposed by us due to a kind of ingrained responsibility inherited from those who worked this land before us. All of this has made us practically the only self-sufficient collective in the First World. We only go to the supermarket to buy what we are unable to produce; the builder, the plumber, or the mechanic only enter the house when the breakdown escapes the skills of the family handymen; we empty the pantry when we are hungry and drink from the well when we are thirsty; we burn the wood from our forests and in the summer, if it's too hot to work, we get up a little earlier and at the peak of the day we take a short nap. It could be said that we have managed to keep open one of the few loopholes that allow escape from the reins of a turbocapitalist system that muddles everything.And the motto? Well, the motto is: “Together we will do everything!” Sounds good, right? Well, it's a lie.Over-regulation has made us slaves to this system as much as or more than any factory or office worker. Let's accept it, we have kept the sacrifices that our work entails but we have lost our autonomy.Record, document, communicate, accredit. Do you have the tag for the certified oats you sowed three years ago? We have detected that one of your animals does not match our data. Do you already have permission to cut the plants on this margin? Keep the recipes, register them. The satellite photos of your fields do not match what you declared. Show me the papers. You have a notification. The deadline is the day after tomorrow. Do you have the well declared with the ACA? DIB validation denied. Have you already done the DUN? Consult the GTR. We have overturned the DAN for you. Pay! Connect! Prove it! Kneel! Fold!

The first measure the People's Party (PP) will take if it governs in Spain will be a "first tax reform" focused on recovering the income tax increase due to inflation in recent years. This is what the PP's Deputy Secretary for Economic Affairs, Alberto Nadal, stated at a luncheon organized by PIMEC in Barcelona. The other immediate initiative would be "to repeal the legal measures that hinder the rental market, as well as certain environmental and labor regulations." Referring to the policies advocated by Elon Musk in the US and Javier Milei in Argentina, Nadal, who served as Budget Secretary under Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, asserted that "chainsaws don't exist, but files do." He also stated that when the PP was in power, it increased public spending at a rate lower than the economy's growth, thus "creating room to lower taxes."

There are underlying shifts. Typically, Catalan civil society is critical from behind the scenes, yet polite and pragmatic in its approach to political power. But this seems to be changing somewhat. In some meetings and gatherings, business representatives are calling for action, for a certain mobilization to overcome challenges such as mobility (commuter rail, for example), the green transition, and reducing administrative bureaucracy. Some are a bit tired of always trying to please everyone and are demanding that politicians work more for the country's interests and less for those of their own party or some of its leaders.

My name is Joan Estarriola i Vilardell. I live in Fontcoberta, in Pla de l'Estany, in a 14th-century farmhouse located on a property of about 10,000 m².² of land. Although I've been retired for over five years, I still feel like a farmer and have ventured into tending a vegetable garden, a small vineyard, and a small olive grove. Like a cat with no job, I've set out to move, with all its nuances and to the extent possible, towards self-sufficiency and sustainability.

A few days ago this newspaper published an article by Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal, entitled "Simplify or dismantle: when the EU turns rights into bureaucracy"The first part of the title seems very apt to me: simplify or dismantle. Personally, I lean towards the first option. I also think the author's intention to warn against simply eliminating bureaucracy is clear. However, while the article moves forward, the author generalizes and makes accusations. I've seen this before in certain ideological positions, and I believe this assimilation needs to be undone."

The bureaucracy has become a serious problem Since the administration decided to transform the collection of a seemingly insignificant bill, or any other similar procedure, into a long ordeal with an uncertain end, I would like to make some suggestions to help resolve this.

On Saturday, there was a demonstration by teachers and professors, and among other demands, they called for "reducing bureaucracy and eliminating unnecessary tasks." At the Revolta Pagesa demonstrations, they also complained about having to spend the afternoon filling out paperwork. This Friday, I had dinner with a mayor from a rural village, one of those who had a group meeting with President Isla the following day at Món Sant Benet, and he told me that the bureaucracy is crushing them, that the administrative procedures for making any decision take an agonizingly long time, especially if, as was the case, they haven't had a secretary for eight years. Small and medium-sized businesses claim that the administration already has 70% of the documentation they require to complete a procedure. Are we now going to delve into the issue of delays of more than a year in receiving subsidies for installing solar panels?

Brussels speaks of simplification, but what is brewing is a fundamental political transformation. In the name of competitiveness and efficiency, the European Commission and several member states are promoting a comprehensive review of the rules protecting social, environmental, and digital rights. Beneath a technical veneer lies an ideological agenda: to portray democratic guarantees as an obstacle to growth.

The president of the People's Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, took advantage of his speech at the 28th National Congress of Family Businesses in Burgos to flatter the business representatives in attendance, who gave him a standing ovation. "More GDP and less Official State Gazette," the PP leader summarized, referring to the gross domestic product (GDP) – that is, growth – and the Official State Gazette –that is, regulation–. He also promised to review "the 97 tax increases," including social security contributions, of the current Spanish government and to implement tax cuts if he wins the elections. In any case, he did not specify which taxes he would lower.

Right now, if a citizen wants to buy an electric car or install a charging station at home, it will take, on average, two years and six months to receive aid from the Generalitat (Catalan Government). But there are much more essential aids, such as the recognition of dependency status or disability status, which the administration takes almost a year to resolve. With the aim of reducing waiting times, the Government activated an emergency plan in November to streamline the ten procedures with the greatest impact on citizens, with more than 650,000 applications last year alone. Of these, eight are in the process of being remodeled with measures implemented that have already yielded the first results, according to the Catalan government.

The digital DNI will begin to take shape this Wednesday. The Official State Gazette (BOE) will publish the decree regulating its "issuance, management, and development process" so that it can be installed on mobile phones. The launch of the digital ID card was approved this Tuesday by the Council of Ministers and will coexist with the physical DNI, although the Spanish government's intention is to extend its use "universally," according to sources from the National Police.

There's so much news that it doesn't matter when you read it. For example, the annual report of the Ombudsman's Office. In the 2024 chapter, presented this Tuesday, Ombudsman Esther Giménez-Salinas concludes that the administration "is like a bureaucratic gymkhana," that citizens must submit the same documentation to different administrations because they don't speak to each other, that the language is unclear because "I don't understand some of the administration's information, which is intended to facilitate the internal management of processes and to simplify the lives and exercise of the rights of those governed."

With just over a week to go before Ursula von der Leyen presents the first outlines of her plan to reduce bureaucracy in the European Union (EU) – the so-called omnibus regulation–, the Spanish government has already set a first position: it does not want the green agenda, that is, the climate objectives, especially those that affect companies, to be jeopardized in the face of a scenario of relaxation of bureaucratic processes. In a letter sent to the European Commission signed by the third vice-president and Minister of Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, and the Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo, Pedro Sánchez's executive warns that although simplification is necessary, it cannot "question the ambition of key European values to guarantee security."

Opponents of the European Union often caricature it as a huge bureaucratic monster that eats up citizens' resources to feed an opaque and endogamous caste of civil servants. And although it is an unfair caricature that seeks to return power to the old nation states, it is true that the progressive deployment of European policies has also been accompanied by a sometimes inextricable bureaucratic forest that affects above all the primary sector and SMEs. That is why it is necessary to positively value the announcement by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, that she will launch a plan to reduce bureaucracy by between 25% (companies in general) and 35% (farmers and SMEs). The truth is that, in good faith and in keeping with the spirit of guarantees in matters of health or the environment that is the trademark of the EU, excessive bureaucracy or slowness in certain procedures has become a brake on economic activity and a factor that reduces the competitiveness of companies.

The Government-pagesos agreement will be good if the Government complies with the pact, but for now it is what they call onewin-win.The executive wins because, in politics, the game of perceptions is fundamental and the agreement was reached on Sunday night. Message: the Government works on a Sunday night to defuse a problem that could complicate the circulation of many people on Monday morning, it reserved a favorable headline to start the week and President Illa could say, like someone who coughs modestly to hide a success, "We have woken up with the country working and without roads cut off." Nothing less than what people expect from the rulers, that they solve the problems and do not believe us anymore.