An important representative of the Valencian employers' association said it this Monday at lunch with journalists: “we have to go to Madrid, we have to be there so that we can be heard.” Objective in this case: to defend before the Government the interests of productive sectors with many problems such as tiles or toys. Not long ago, the Valencian Business Association, AVE, held its annual event in Madrid for the second time to evaluate the execution of the Mediterranean corridor works.
“We have to be here so that we can be heard,” stressed the president of this important business lobby, Vicente Boluda. Shortly after, President Carlos Mazón participated in an event at the Madrid Casino organized by the Conexus Foundation together with Isabel Díaz Ayuso to, among others, demand the expansion of the port of Valencia. Days later, the Government approved the work.
It's a constant. The peripheries, well connected thanks to Spain's radial network by rail, road and also air, need to be present in Madrid, because economic, political, judicial, social, financial power and, furthermore, a large part of the talent is concentrated in Madrid. The peripheries are increasingly weaker to condition the policies of the State, except when political formations from those peripheries are necessary for the stability of the Central Government of that same State.
A State that increasingly identifies with Madrid, thanks to the message that is distributed by this concentration of media, which has turned Madrid into the necessary reference in the Spanish collective imagination. An example: a big traffic jam in Castellana will be news in those news spaces; A meeting of the Valencian, Catalan, Murcian and Andalusian employers' associations along the Mediterranean corridor will barely merit attention. Let's not talk about football, where the overrepresentation of Real Madrid is spectacular.
You have to go to Madrid!, and with this objective, the State has put all possible resources to make it quick, easy and cheap; With which the circulation of people and goods towards the capital of Spain grows constantly, unstoppably. This translates into the increasing concentration of resources, while other peripheries struggle to avoid depopulation and brain drain.
This businessman said that “what we do notice is that Madrid is increasingly closed in on itself.” Important comment, as it explains how territorial power in Spain is being radically modified, with a vision of Spain that is increasingly less plural and more conditioned by the drive that is being installed in the State. “We have to go to Madrid to be heard,” this entrepreneur repeated, and his statement has become the norm among the main economic, political and social actors in the Valencian Community. It will be the constant for the coming years.
