The major Catalan business leaders conveyed to Pedro Sánchez their dissatisfaction with a housing policy that they say discourages private construction. The closed-door meeting at the Pedralbes Palace also addressed regional financing and immigration.
The representatives of the G8 Catalan business group took the opportunity during their closed-door meeting with Pedro Sánchez at the Palacio de Pedralbes in Barcelona to reproach him for having a housing policy focused on hindering private construction. According to EL MUNDO, the meeting took place at noon and the business spokespeople expressed a "total convergence of opinion".
The group, which includes the Círculo de Economía, the Cámara de Barcelona, the Colegio de Economistas, the Racc, Barcelona Global, the business associations Pimec and Femcat, and Fira de Barcelona, conveyed to the head of the Executive that their measures are aimed at "demonising private construction". The meeting did not include the president of Fira de Barcelona, Pau Relat, nor the president of Foment, Josep Sánchez Llibre, a business association not part of the G8 and which has maintained a cool relationship with Salvador Illa since he criticised the financing model agreed with ERC.
The business leaders insisted that the regulation comes at a time that is "emotionally very sensitive" and with "a lot of demagoguery", just the day before the Council of Ministers approved the anti-eviction decree agreed between the PSOE and Sumar, a text that still needs to be validated by the Congress of Deputies.
"It is not a secure business as it is an intervened business," they told the president to describe the situation in the construction sector.
According to sources present at the meeting, Sánchez "was basically listening attentively, hardly intervened, and appeared surprised" by the business leaders' arguments. The president defended that "more public housing is being built than ever", to which the interlocutors replied that the housing problem will not be solved solely with public promotion, but that incentives for private investors are needed to build sufficient homes.
Alongside Sánchez were Illa, the Government delegate in Catalonia, Carles Prieto, and the director of the President's Economic Affairs Office, Manuel Rocha. The meeting, according to the same sources, "was not ceremonial, but rather an exchange of opinions".
In the economic chapter, the G8 called for legal measures to promote business growth and reduce bureaucratic and fiscal obstacles. Regarding regional financing, the business leaders assumed that Junts will eventually allow the processing of the model agreed with ERC and asked Sánchez for "an effort" to improve the text before the final vote in Congress.
They also requested "some form of para-governmental control" to monitor the execution of the Budgets, especially the allocations aimed at correcting the infrastructure deficit that Catalonia suffers. "What cannot happen is that the works are budgeted and not executed," they conveyed to the president.
The migration challenge was also present in the conversation. The G8 asked the Government to "not incentivise irregular immigration as it has until now" and that the migration model should focus on channeling the legal arrival of foreigners, in a context marked by the rise of Aliança Catalana in Catalan politics.
The demands had been agreed upon prior to the meeting, allowing the business leaders to present Sánchez with "a picture of great unity, as there were no differences". The anti-eviction decree approved by the Executive will now continue its parliamentary processing, a process that will determine the regulatory framework affecting owners, tenants, and developers in Catalonia.
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