The train of prosperity
From the Catalonia of 2022 to tomorrow's Catalonia

That day bore witness to change in the history of Catalonia. [Miquel Biada](https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miquel_Biada) was a businessman who had spent over ten years envisioning how the steam engine could become a fundamental tool for progress. It was his belief that the train had the potential to transform the social and economic development of a nation. He came back to Catalonia firmly believing that this infrastructure element made it possible to transport a present-day society into tomorrow's world. This was the logic of the time; it served as the algorithm of a whole era. However, it was not easy to progress from idea to reality. He sought out internal alliances and found them; he sought outside funding and secured it; he navigated his way through the economic crises and the indolence of the centralist State that aimed to prioritise a different route. Ultimately, [the Mataró-Barcelona line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona%E2%80%93Matar%C3%B3_railway) entered service on 28 October 1848. It was the logistical rudder needed for the development of a specific industry, but at the same time the project amalgamated the energy of a nation – one discovering its sense of identity anew – which was re-establishing a culture while simultaneously seeking to overcome the forthcoming challenge posed by the industrial revolution. Catalonia had made its place in the world as an epicentre for progress.

Merely four years later, the engineer [Domènec Cardenal](https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domingo_Cardenal_Gandasegui) began managing the work to build [Urgell canal](https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_d%27Urgell). It was not a new project; plans had been afoot since the Middle Ages, but it was viewed as far too complex and expensive. The final works called for a mix of ambition and technique. Among several hurdles, [Montclar mountain range](https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serra_de_Montclar) had to be overcome. It was necessary to assemble six thousand labourers in order to dig the approximately five-kilometre length of Montclar tunnel, the longest in Europe at the time. A decade later the first property was already being irrigated. In a short space of time, 6,500 hectares of new irrigated land had grown to as many as 62,000 merely two decades later. The water just kept on flowing. The social and economic change heralded by water on [the plain of Urgell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pla_d%27Urgell) was extraordinary; indeed, it is still felt to this day. The ambition of the 19th century shrouded the streets of Barcelona and Catalonia as a whole. An economic and demographic revolution had taken place which would live on in the bustling primary sector of the counties of Lleida.

One morning in September 1874, two guards were waiting on Carrer del Carme for that girl to leave her house. Their journey would be short, but the steps they were about to take would chart a course towards hope. The two officers were there to escort 17-year-old [Dolors Aleu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolors_Aleu_i_Riera) on her way to [Santa Creu Hospital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Hospital_de_la_Santa_Creu,_Barcelona). Aleu is perfectly healthy. Thanks to her efforts, she was about to put right an unjust inertia. She wanted to follow a study programme for which she had a clear ability and, by overcoming an obscurantist tradition that denied women entry to higher education, she would go on to become the first woman in Spain to obtain a degree in Medicine. What is more, in 1882 she became the first woman to present a PhD thesis in Spain. In it she gave a reasoned statement for equality between genders and made an appeal for education as a force for justice. She opened a surgery on [Rambla de les Flors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Rambla,_Barcelona). Her twofold decision – to receive an education with the aim of going on to train and, thus, advocating for improvements in social justice – could be seen as the prelude not just to the central role currently played by health sciences as a vector for wellbeing, but also to a notion of prosperity that cannot be detached from the concept of care as a cohesive factor in a society aware of the rift caused by inequality.

Our history incorporates threads of hope that we must cling on to if we now want to weave together a collective network to recoup a future that is worth living in; in the mountain or at sea; in the countryside or in the city; moving from a feeling of defeat to one of pride. At a time when the history of self-government appeared to have been erased, the great celebration of the transition in Catalonia was marked by the return of [an exiled president](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josep_Tarradellas) thanks to whom an entire nation recaptured the institution that had endowed it with political identity. On one evening in 1992, [the mayor of Barcelona](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasqual_Maragall) recalled in front of the whole world how [the president of the Government of Catalonia had been assassinated due to fascism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llu%C3%ADs_Companys). That link to a tragic past became a common thread for commitment to Catalonia, embodied in a sporting event that transformed its capital and established Catalonia's place on the world map as a benchmark for global acclaim and blissful efficiency.

Clinging on to threads, as many as possible, in order to reinvent futures. The design of futures does not take a final fate for granted; rather, it lays out a comprehensive vision and conceives specific opportunities for improvement that are devised here and now. This is the task that the [2022 Catalonia Task Force](https://2022.cat/en/task-force) has set itself. We have done so by pooling a wide range of efforts, persuaded that it is better to be bold by plotting a course for our future than allow ourselves to have it restricted or imposed externally. We have attempted to do so with the freedom to think beyond the framework of institutions, albeit firmly committed to them. The proposal to organise ourselves as a task force was given to us by [the Government of Catalonia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalitat_de_Catalunya) and it is with honour that we accepted it, because we believe in the central role played by politics in a democratic society. With full liberty, it has been in this spirit that we have sought to envision a comprehensive project for the transformation of Catalonia; and not from scratch. In Catalonia we benefit from a legacy, a fabric; we believed we faced a challenge, in the same way as the pioneers of equality, industry or the countryside did. The challenge consists of starting anew.

Indeed, because we are familiar with our past, we are aware that we do not need to start from scratch. We are keeping a promise of prosperity that goes a long way back and thanks to which, over several years, we have built up a host of assets which now need to be strengthened. Public and private assets. The aim is to find as much talent as possible – to create it, attract it and retain it – in order to make use of this fabric, modernise it and, accordingly, capitalise on it as much as possible to provide us with broad scope for creating wealth and better, more efficient public services that need to be implemented in a context that is now geared to the digital environment. The initiative involves resuming a tradition that was promoted by civil society and which has formed the common thread of modern Catalonia to put us in the best possible position to live in the society of the fourth industrial revolution.

In recent times, Catalonia has changed scarcely, but the world order has developed substantially while climate crises, far from being reversed, have continued to gain traction as the primary threat to the future of humankind. We should not forget that that the UN has confirmed that climate stresses are and will be behind pandemics such as the one we are suffering right now. The present pandemic has accelerated the shift of the worldwide hegemony from the Atlantic to the Pacific and has disrupted the undeniable leadership exerted by Western democracies thus far. New geostrategic movements and tensions between major powers, which slow down the pace of financial globalisation and incorporate other variables (such as production and technology) are compelling everyone to reconsider what their place in the world may be. It has been in this moment of hiatus that we have noted to a large extent that our present constitutes a period of transition. Covid has marked a turning point in the unfolding of globalisation, with a new course being charted out. We are about to turn the page of a new chapter in our history that is forcing us to imagine the path we would like to follow over the next decades.

At this juncture, in the midst of this hiatus that has engulfed the whole world, the time seems to have come for us to press the button for a reset; a reset to update a system that has worked for us in Catalonia, but which has been falling behind the times. We now need to consider what model of nation we would like for the future in order to be ready to build it once the health crisis is over. Is it ostentatious to consider the future of Catalonia in this change of paradigm and from a geostrategic perspective? We believe it is not. Quite the contrary, in fact. Faced with the risk of letting tomorrow's train of prosperity – which is closer than we thought it was prior to the pandemic – pass us by, we know that Catalonia will only benefit from a worthwhile future if it is imbued with the new European paradigm that is under construction to enable us to play a role in a world of regionalised globalisation and thereby ensure that our welfare state is much stronger.

What, therefore, is this European paradigm? To uphold its mission of being a model in terms of rights and freedoms, the European Union has taken on the challenge of transforming certain key industries on the continent based on the [New Green Deal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Green_Deal), championing a fair transition and with digitalisation serving as the tool that must make it possible for institutions to be modernised and citizens to benefit from a better quality of life. It is a forward-looking vision that is aligned with [the UN 2030 Agenda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals) and which accepts that a specific State model, "the enterprising state", should serve as the vital catalyst of change. The enterprising state is proactive: it identifies problems, it exercises leadership by appealing to stakeholders who are in a position to solve those problems, and it contributes to the design of solutions. Public services – which are centred on and integrated into society – change the functionality of these solutions and steer their focus to the concept of public value, viewed as a service for the community. This enterprising state is nurtured by the strength of an enterprising society: the state will not be able to fulfil this modernising role without its society, through its endeavours and demands, breathing life into it.

In order to start anew, Catalonia needs a policy of this type and certain public institutions need to be reformed to deliver better quality, more equitable services. The foremost of these institutions relates to the sphere of learning. There are also certain institutions that are reluctant to cooperate to bring about change (the centralised Spanish State unquestionably, although this is also the case within administrative culture to a degree). Frequently, there are institutions that are not in a position to be transformed so new ones must be set up or new models should be fostered to showcase the fact that the old ones have become outdated. In any event, when faced with the challenge of prosperity, only that which helps is meaningful; this is also true of a brave policy that prioritises the politics of things and steers clear of the little things in politics. It is at this juncture that the institutional alliance with private, third-sector stakeholders must enable Catalonia to align itself with the modernising project put forward by the European Union.

The starting point must be the acknowledgment that the economic status of Catalonia in the world has slipped. Certain traditional sectors of our economy are becoming outdated, others are gaining traction and many will need to modernise by discovering the potential afforded by digitalisation and by capitalising on the unique opportunity served by the [Next Generation Funds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_EU), as indeed the Catalonia-Next Generation EU Advisory Committee has pointed out in its report. In any event, in the face of this receding economic strength, an ambitious appeal must be made for all talent to work together with the aim of transferring all the knowledge gained in order to overhaul the economy of Catalonia and lend impetus to its productivity. The Government of Catalonia is well-placed to coordinate this innovation opportunity, and it must equally mobilise grants so that SMEs can digitalise their processes and deliver enhanced services. These are examples of action from an enterprising state. This catalysing task must benefit the institutions so that the rewards gained through this work make it possible to invest in the system of citizens' rights and freedoms; a system that has changed due to the pandemic, revealing the interconnected nature of health and social protection and showcasing the resulting need to consider both aspects at the same time.

In a similar vein, the operation of this state lends new scope to parliamentary action. In recent years, the quest for sovereignty has been at the heart of Catalan politics and, in order to bring this in sync with the change of paradigm, it may be necessary to channel this quest for sovereignty as the fundamental instrument for the development of Catalonia: acting as the driving force behind alliances at various levels (regional and institutional) and, at the same time, making it more accountable for its obligations, requiring it to modernise its mechanisms for assessing government action.

What needs to be done is to identify stakeholders that share this huge aim and are committed to this common one-nation goal. It is up to all of us to play a role from all realms: culture and science, business, administration and the general public. From those who envision the metropolis of Barcelona as a region of five million inhabitants – as set out in the Strategic Metropolitan Plan – to those who are exploring new areas of centrality around Catalonia; from the countryside through smaller towns to the magnets by the sea and the mountain which will continue to draw in visitors from all over the globe. Catalonia does not need to mirror any other country because no country is the same. Catalonia is a small-sized ecosystem, albeit one that is very complex and at the same time adequately cohesive – as demonstrated by a host of aspects from the varying nature of its geography to the poles of research or the density of its medium-sized business fabric. Indeed, this host of features means Catalonia is well-placed to serve as a laboratory to seek out a formula for progress that can be replicated: a model of society where economic and social prosperity, environmental sustainability and the commitment to science make it possible to place life at its core and to channel the wealth generated by a vibrant business fabric for the common good. A Catalonia that acts as an open laboratory for any new responsible, creative and global democracy.