«The design of the autonomies should be different, there are 17 and I have half left over»

The administrative structure of the State, with an “elephantic” size and seventeen autonomous communities, generates, in the opinion of Ignacio Marco-Gardoqui, excessive spending, “which breaks the market.” The economist and lawyer believes that the design of the territorial map “should be different” and opted for greater concentration, with communities that “are economically and geographically sustained.” During the question period after his presentation ‘The problems we don’t know’ within the forum organized by Diario LA RIOJA with the sponsorship of Ibercaja, the commentator for the Vocento regional newspapers even proposed “uniting La Rioja with the Basque Country, if “You promise me that you are not going to run away.” Of the seventeen autonomies, “I have half left over,” he added.

In his previous intervention, he was critical of the “duplicities” generated by this “chaotic” structure, to the point that the business association CEOE “calculates that last year 1.3 million pages were approved and published in the different official bulletins.” ». This makes Spain’s legal security “one of the great obstacles to investment and its low level harms productivity.”

And when financing enters the equation of the autonomies, “the sudoku becomes diabolical, as Pedro Solbes – who was Minister of Economy in the socialist governments of Felipe González and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero – said,” Marco-Gardoqui recalled in the question time moderated by the director of this newspaper, Teresa Cobo. The “unique” financing proposed by the central government for Catalonia “arises from Pedro Sánchez’s need for pro-independence votes. The president does this very well, he already courted Junts per Catalunya for his investiture and let him draft the Amnesty Law. And now he is negotiating with ERC that financing, which has been branded as blackmail by Puigdemont.

Precisely, the former president of the Generalitat is, in the opinion of the economist, lawyer and former professor at the Commercial University of Deusto, “the one who is going to throw Pedro Sánchez” out of Moncloa, especially if the head of the Executive and general secretary of the PSOE ” insists that Salvador Illa stand for the investiture for the presidency in Catalonia. If he achieves the support of ERC, another schism will be created. Although no alternative is easy. “The situation is ungovernable, if not even the independentists get along…” And where can the solution come from? “A psychiatrist,” he added.

Madrid, economic reference

The political future of Catalonia and that of Sánchez are linked, although the speaker highlighted the president’s “enormous capacity for endurance” to “stay at all costs” in power. Of course, he “is doing so many terrible things that he will go down with a crash.” Ignacio Marco-Gardoqui did not talk about deadlines but “as Emiliano García-Page – president of Castilla-La Mancha and almost the only socialist baron critical of Pedro Sánchez – says, what is unfeasible cannot be eternalized.” The current central government “does not govern but exists. He has only passed one law, that of amnesty, which Spain has cracked.

Among the harsh criticisms made by the Vocento economic commentator, with more than 6,500 articles written in the last three decades, he emphasized the decision of the Spanish Executive not to present its draft budget. «It is a scandal. The Government has the constitutional obligation to present the budget. If he doesn’t do it, it is because he believes that he is going to lose it, that he is not going to have enough support – in a vote in the Congress of Deputies – and then he has to resign,” he stated during an event attended by representatives of Ibercaja – with the territorial director of La Rioja, Burgos and Guadalajara, José Ángel Pérez, at the head–; businessmen; parliamentarians such as the popular David Mena and Carlos Paúl and the spokespersons for Vox and Podemos-IU in the legislative chamber, Ángel Alda and Henar Moreno, respectively; or the president of the board of directors of Nueva Rioja, Francisco Achiaga.

La Rioja, in Marco-Gardoqui’s opinion, has to be able to “copy whoever is doing things well” from an economic point of view in order to consolidate its growth. And, in this sense, now the first reference is Madrid, above Catalonia or the Basque Country. The Madrid community “has opened up to investment and more than 50% of the foreign money that arrived in Spain last year went to Madrid.” The capital “is filled with foreign students” but also the best university students in Spain “are already looking for an apartment there to do a master’s degree or start developing their professional careers.” This growth of the Madrid community “is largely due to nationalism, especially Catalan,” he said in a new criticism of these pro-independence groups.

Immigration and Palestine

But not only politics and economics were part of the discussion with Marco-Gardoqui. Immigration was on the table, weeks after the Bank of Spain estimated that our country needs 25 million foreigners, within three decades – it placed the horizon at 2053 – to sustain pensions. “The immigration issue is crucial,” he said. He did not hide the need to bring in workers from outside “and immigrants have the right to come and we have the right to maintain our operating scheme. “The ability to absorb and integrate immigration is the ability to provide decent, quality work.”

And there was one last issue that the speaker also commented on during question time: the recognition of the State of Palestine by the Sánchez Government. «I don’t know who is the good one, Palestine or Israel. Now it looks like Palestine, but until World War II it was the Jews because Hitler crushed them… I don’t know who the good guy is but I know who ours is, Israel, because it is Western civilization. Why does Egypt close the borders and not let the Palestinians enter? Of course, he also made it very clear that “I absolutely do not agree with the atrocities that are being committed in Gaza.”