Disempowered Barcelona | Catalonia | THE COUNTRY

In 2020, 100 years ago, a fair century, of the economic apogee of Barcelona and its province over the rest of Spain: in 1920, the gross domestic product per inhabitant in the province was 2.81 times that of Spain. Then the difference was reduced and today it will be around 1.20 (explains Albert Carreras, historian of the economy, in the wake of Jaume Vicens, in his speech at the Institut d’Estudis Catalans). Today we are still relatively wealthier than others, but considerably less than before. This is why our attractiveness to the rest of Spain decreases and our detachment from it increases: nothing important in the recent history of Catalonia is understood if we do not start from its inexorable relative economic decline. We attribute this to the more than secular centralization of Madrid – “the heart of Spain” – that “beats with pulses of fever,” wrote Rafael Alberti. Yes, but it is not only that: we also depressed the capital of Catalonia, many Catalan politicians detest it, such as, for example, those who never finished accepting Pau Donés, from Jarabe de Palo, as one of our own . Barcelona disempowered, undercapitalized. By ourselves.

I started this article one Sunday when a friend of mine, a Barcelona resident in Madrid, told me by phone that, after hanging up, I would go down to the street to buy a kilo of cherries. Oh, I can’t do it because, in Barcelona, ​​the shops are closed on Sundays. Then my friend added that she would take an Uber taxi. Nor can I, our representatives kicked them out of Barcelona, ​​they decided such nonsense. Where will you go? I finally asked him. To the Prado Museum, he replied. I envied her for this unique privilege paid by you and my taxes. The selection of 250 paintings that the Museum has chosen for reopening during deconfusion is a unique wonder in the world. And we do not have a Prado in Barcelona, ​​but quite a few Catalan public managers reject the proposal to install a franchise in the Hermitage Museum in Barcelona, ​​despite the fact that it would fill the gaps with classic European painting and the first avant-garde that darken Barcelona. If Francesc Cambó raised his head, he would ask that his collection, exhibited today at the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), be enriched with the one the Russians want to bring.

The closeness, the self-absorption, the narrowness of many of those here are a chronic pain: a few days ago Christo Vladimirov Javacheff died, who, with Jeanne-Claude, formed the most fascinating pair of environmental artists of the last 50 years: they transfigured the surrounding buildings, such as the Pont Neuf, in Paris (1985), or the Reichstag, in Berlin (1995). In 1977 they proposed wrapping the statue of Columbus in Barcelona, ​​but there was no way to get permits. At last, Pasqual Maragall, after winning the mayoralty in 1982, wanted to roll back the refusal, but by then the artists had already lost interest (although the same thing happened with the Puerta de Alcalá; basically, we all look very much alike in this country, languages ​​change).

In these pages I have defended a metropolitan mayor’s office for Barcelona and its surrounding municipalities, as in London. Do not care. And when I have emphasized the cardinality of public transport in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, I have not been able to ignore the fact that the iniquity of some politicians in my city against private transport, against the automobile, reminds me of the grayness of all monopolies: they want to tell me where can I go, when can I go and when not. They long to shepherd us all.

But neither was everything right, nor is everything wrong: the economic boom did not prevent civil conflict, it lacked social policy. Today when the city looks up, it advocates commendable social solutions. In April, the Municipal Immigration Council, a consultative entity of the Barcelona City Council, chaired by Councilor Marc Serra and which groups around fifty entities, asked for the regularization of immigrants in an irregular situation. Something that Teresa Bellanova, Italian Minister of Agriculture, an exemplary policy whom we should invite to visit this city, achieved by herself for her country. The Portuguese have also done so. And a young Republican senator from Barcelona, ​​Bernat Picornell, also suggested it to a Spanish minister, whose response was minute: our country is not like Italy and Portugal, our circumstances are different. Too bad, because this aging city needs new blood. To return to being like the economic Barcelona of 100 years ago, it will be necessary to build the social city within another 100.

Pablo Salvador Coderch He is Professor Emeritus of Civil Law, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

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