Pedro Sánchez is considering resigning as president of the Government. Tomorrow his decision will be known. But in the meantime, there is new data for the eternal comparison, competition, complementarity?, between Madrid and Barcelona. Of course.
Madrid versus Barcelona; Barcelona versus Madrid; And so on to infinity. The eternal comparison between the two large metropolitan regions of the country is a classic. And lately, moreover, it resurfaces.
Putting the strengths and weaknesses of each one on the map always helps to pull one over the other; to bring out the colors from one and the other; to intuit the future that is approaching step by step for everyone, especially when seeing it through the lens of the population dynamics that occur in one and another.
And the rest of Spain, in general, attends as a spectator.
In recent weeks La Vanguardia has made an effort to put it black on white. The conclusion: there is little clear. And what remains...
You look at the radial map of the AVE and you sense the centrality that has been given to the capital in public works and in public Administration, headquarters, today, of the vast majority of the country's institutions.
But beyond that, it is what affects people that speaks of changes.
The first: whether for a or b, Madrid is the great vacuum cleaner for young people in Spain. The Spanish capital keeps half of the entire positive balance among the Spanish provinces that add population between 16 and 34 years old due to interprovincial movement. And no one doubts that they are the future. But here Barcelona falls to third place after the Balearic Islands, with both provinces barely attracting 11% and 12% of the positive balance respectively.
Uf.
Only one in three Spanish provinces gains a young population from other provinces. And above all Madrid. A drama of imbalance, and even more to occur especially – the experts repeat – in the population with higher education in empty Spain and in the Spain of medium-sized cities.
The second: Barcelona and Madrid have become poles of attraction for foreign immigrants with high incomes (which is calculated, in the absence of more data, with those born in countries with a GDP higher than that of Spain). But be careful, Barcelona already attracts a greater number. And decades ago the Spanish capital won very clearly.
The latest data says that up to 77,000 people from countries richer than Spain end up in the Catalan capital compared to the 68,000 who would go to the Spanish capital and that the population of Barcelona is 1.6 million inhabitants and that of Madrid , of 3.2 million.
And they matter: they are a basic lever of the economy.
The current wave of expats, of those who “do not emigrate out of necessity, fleeing a difficult situation in their country, but by choice”, “transforms Barcelona”, is settled today.
Also because it is combined with other data with even more consequences or at least the same ones that imply the tilted mobility towards Madrid of the mobility from the provinces of the country: according to the figures provided to us by demographic institutes and that will be published shortly in this daily, but we advance here, Barcelona has specialized compared to Madrid in attracting qualified foreign population and, in fact, according to the INE, it is already the city with the highest percentage of population with higher education among inhabitants aged 16 or over. among the main Spanish cities.
Its consequences remain to be seen. But there is the usual debate between quantity and quality with deep consequences in the labor market, competitiveness or its external influence, innovation and more. Also, of course, for your daily life in prices, letters in English and more.
Of course, who knows if it will change with proposals such as that of the Government led by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, which, continuing with the tax competition between autonomous communities, chooses to offer to deduct 20% of their investments for six years to foreigners who have recently arrived in the Community of Madrid and Spaniards who have been living abroad for more than five years and have their tax domicile here.
The negative point for Madrid, Barcelona and everyone: talent is lost due to the emigration in 2022 of some 400,000 people. And be careful: 60% of those born in Spain who emigrate have higher education, atypical numbers “similar to those during periods of crisis and unemployment,” it is confessed.
Nothing fits.
Pedro Sánchez has given himself until tomorrow to decide whether to resign from the presidency of the Government after a judge opened proceedings against his wife. There were Galician elections before (with a PP majority); There were Basques last weekend (with a nationalist majority, especially in Bizkaia and in the most populated and nationalist areas in more and more places in the Basque Country, indicated, on the map above, in dark gray). In two weeks, on May 12, it is also the Catalans. The Europeans arrive on June 9.
There are nerves. The Spanish political board suffers one shock after another. And all in a more than complex context of global rearmament: world military spending today reaches “unprecedented” levels and without exceptions:
Meanwhile, critical data is accumulating that affects that same policy in the midst of the electoral maelstrom, which in fact is now becoming the central debate even in areas that in principle are more given to identity, such as in Euskadi. In particular, these: the allocation of MIR family places ends with 246 vacancies in 10 autonomies. 3,000 graduates prefer not to choose a position. At the same time, the average number of days waiting to be able to undergo surgery in public health sees red numbers almost everywhere.
Times change, priorities change, leadership notices it.
