Why do businessmen in Catalonia consider more important an investiture agreement that includes an amnesty for those accused of the process and that, therefore, opens the door of the Government to Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz, when their colleagues in Madrid are 'are they obstinate to achieve the failure of the negotiations and consider it necessary to call new elections to see if a new majority emerges, this time yes, to give the key to Moncloa to Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Santiago Abascal?
Last Thursday, while the president of the Cercle d'Economia, Jaume Guardiola, presented in Barcelona his proposal for a conditional amnesty, the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, spoke out against it again without cracks for the second or third time . Meanwhile, the president of Foment, the Catalan partner of the big Spanish employer, Josep Sánchez Llibre, has been preparing the ground for months so that there is a political agreement on the measure of grace for Carles Puigdemont and the pro-independence parties who have pending court cases . After the positions of Foment and the Circle there is the vast majority of economic and trade union organizations in Catalonia, from PIMEC to CECOT and the Chamber of Barcelona. Also CC.OO. and the UGT
What is the cause of this overwhelming lack of empathy from the money of the capital towards their Barcelona colleagues, overwhelmed after years of political and social inaction and paralysis in their territory of direct influence?
It is obvious that the capital's elite disavow some features of the Government's economic policy, both what is currently in place and what is hinted at after the agreement between the PSOE and Sumar, also presented this week. But this does not mean that Catalan businessmen do not see it, in this area, in a practically identical way. On almost all issues, both have agreed in their criticism of the tax, budget or labor policy of the Sánchez executive, with whom they have been in litigation for some time.
Apparently, the hard core of Spanish economic power is more concerned about respect for legality, the authority of the rule of law and the equality of Spaniards, which would be seriously damaged, in their view, by an amnesty. But it is difficult to show more concern than that expressed by the Catalan bourgeoisie when, with these arguments, they moved the headquarters of thousands of companies and their two large banks out of Catalonia after the referendum of October 2017.
On the other hand, there were not many complaints in Madrid when Mariano Rajoy's government approved the tax amnesty of its Minister of Finance, Cristóbal Montoro, in 2012. Nor in Barcelona. Equality before the law was not a cause for controversy in these environments.
In terms of political analysis, the unqualified rejection of a Government agreement between PSOE-Sumar with the parliamentary support of the Catalan independentists, especially Junts, at the expense of the amnesty, allows both that economic core and the Spanish right, not focus exclusively on criticism of the Government's economic policy. It points out the line of opposition without crematistic interests being the only argument.
But from the positions so clearly divergent between the two companies, it is also necessary to deduce a reading in terms of competition, in this case of territorial elites. It wouldn't be good at all, they've been doing it for decades around the State's investment policies, a way of dividing the pie that favors some entrepreneurs over others beyond the excellent social impact that has this question.
In Madrid, the existence of more than one center of power, that is to say, one other than this one, has always been frowned upon. The awareness of this dispute has marked generations of businessmen in Madrid and Barcelona. And the controversial issue of amnesty should not be read apart from all this. Catalan business organizations dream of the recovery of normality and the return of companies. At Madrid DF they see nothing good in undoing the road. In fact, they prefer not to appeal. That is why they do not understand the option of their Catalan colleagues to cradle the agreement between the socialists and the pro-independence parties, which, on top of that, will save a Sánchez they see as an enemy of their interests.
It's been a long time since Madrid heard of the longed-for "market unity", which for so long had been the workhorse of the large Spanish company, due to the supposed barriers erected in Catalonia to slow down or prevent its entry or to protect indigenous firms.
It must have fallen into oblivion because if the "market unit" does not exist it is above all due to the breakdown of balance and equality in the payment of taxes between the elites of Madrid and those of most of the other autonomous communities ; lately less so after the changes in some of the communities ruled by the people. It is a change, by the way, that the taxpayers of the communities that already pay the most run the risk of ending up paying, as they have done after each tax reduction in the community of Madrid.
It was an arid debate about labelling, language, regulations, environmental fees, authorizations or inspections. It seemed like the end of the world. Now, on the other hand, that we are talking about trinco-trico money, of not paying expressly, there is no need to talk about "market unit". And when the Government proposes some measure to moderate the differences: recourse to the Constitution.
