The confrontation between the Government and Ferrovial over the transfer of the company's headquarters to the Netherlands demonstrates economic nationalism, which departs from the idea of Europe that has been embodied in the successive treaties that make up the European Union.
It is a low-flying debate, more rhetorical than real, which ignores the rules and commitments we have made to Europe. If German or French companies invest and settle in Spain, it is not a problem for a Spanish multinational to move its headquarters to another country in the Union.
The nation state will not disappear from today to tomorrow, but it will become increasingly interdependent. Ambassador Juan Antonio March recalled on Wednesday, at a conference on the current situation in the world, a Chinese proverb that says that "if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together."
Chancellor Merkel said that Germany will only do well in the long run if Europe does well. Social market capitalism, theorized and put into practice by Chancellor Ludwig Erhard (1963-1966), was based on two fundamental variables: creating wealth and distributing it generously and equitably. All this within a framework of freedoms and demands in the business and trade union sphere. The State does not create wealth but merely ensures that it is distributed in a socially just manner.
The Sánchez government has been using a rhetoric more typical of Unidas Podemos than of the social democracy of the PSOE for some time. His parliamentary precariousness should not distance him so much from the story that has characterized Spanish socialism. More Indalecio Prieto or Felipe González than Largo Caballero. When he talks about those at the top and those at the bottom, or when he points to businessmen who earn a lot of money by name, he does not take into account that in order to spread wealth it is necessary to create it first.
And it is the large or small companies, not the State, that create the greatest wealth. The Government must create a fairer society with fiscal policies that reduce inequalities. But it seems reckless to me to intervene or coerce companies if they act within the national and European legal frameworks. The Government has to move in the field of legal certainty because there is nothing scarier than investors.
