Progress or total decline

After many local and national votes, demos by millions of people, a democratically elected parliamentary majority and a pro-government, Catalonia is about to regain the national freedom lost more than 300 years ago. However, Spain continues to deny the right to self-determination, unlike the cases of Scotland and Quebec. In this way, the Spanish state, heir of the Franco regime, shows its anti-democratic nature.

But what is behind this? Spain’s unemployment rate stood at 18% in April, 10 points above the EU average; because of the foreseen depletion of the public pensions reserve fund, this year more indebtedness is needed, when public debt on GDP is already around 100%! All of these are symptoms of a structural evil.

The international economy has suffered the Great Recession, but there are differential factors in Spain, especially the real estate bubble that burst in 2008. It is not the only country where a real estate bubble existed, but it seems that the main culprits, the governments of the PP, the PSOE and the Spanish financial and economic oligarchy neither changed the underlying economic model nor want to change it. Catalonia’s independence would force them to change this inefficient and corrupt economic model, since the Spanish state could not count annually on 8% of the Catalan GDP to compensate for its lack of economic efficiency. So, they are against independence , apart from being anti-democratic and Spanish imperialists.

An example of economic inefficiency? The hypercentralist Spanish state conceived a high speed rail radial network to connect all the provincial capitals with the megacapital in less than four hours. And it did not take into account the economic rationality of this huge investment. Result: Spain has more kilometres of high-speed railway network than France, Germany, Japan and the US, but public debt has skyrocketed and no line is profitable.

On the other hand, a very necessary infrastructure for economic development such as the Mediterranean Rail Corridor, which links the centre of Europe with North Africa along the Mediterranean coast, has been postponed for years, mainly for political reasons: it does not go through Madrid. Well, the Government of Spain now wants the Mediterranean Rail Corridor to go through Madrid, when it is over 300 km from the coast. But the economic reasons are not very important in Spain. They may think: “The inefficiencies will be borne by the colonies (Catalan speaking Mediterranean regions).” Thus, the Spanish economic model leads the colonies like Catalonia into total decline, as development of the megacapital Madrid is the priority. Thus, Catalonia’s independence is the only way to develop the potential of the Catalan economy.

This will also be positive for the EU, since the strong growth of the Catalan economy, once the huge fiscal deficit with Spain is eliminated and with an adequate economic policy, this will benefit surrounding regions. The Catalan Republic will be a dynamic hub in southern Europe and firms based in Catalonia will benefit from the change. We must not forget that the Catalan independence movement is pro-European and open to the world. As for the Spanish state, the loss of the colonial income it has obtained so far from Catalonia will force it to improve its economic model and to be more efficient and less corrupt. Europe and democracy will also win.