It takes for granted that Catalonia will reach, sooner rather than later, the 10 million inhabitants. And he wants to start preparing so that public services and infrastructure are at the height of that demographic jump. The omen, which has expressed recurringly – although so far without too much concretion – has been received with open rejection by the few who have publicly crumble it. And especially for the extreme right. The arguments against the “denaturation” of the country “growth, whether or not so pronounced, will be given by immigration – juxtaposed, or rather camouflaged, under the pretext of sustainability. Catalonia, they come to say, it doesn’t give so much. “If you do not know how to see the limitations of resources and territory, get away,” he has proclaimed.
The projection of the Government is part of the finding of a lack: with the design In force, it is not enough to meet the needs of the population, with serious difficulties in accessing housing or moving in public transport without shocks. “We are a country designed for 6 million people who now have 8 and will soon have 10,” said the counselor. , in the famous campaign of the Generalitat of. The population was thus practically stagnant, to the first stages of the century, with the arrival of extra -community migrants. Almost no one repaired in the seven million, perhaps by a love for even, round, definitive numbers. In November 2023, and almost by surprise, it was announced, without the euphoria and optimism of yesteryear, which had overcome another threshold: 8 million Catalans. .
The first, however, is to test the premise: is it true that “soon” will we be ten million? He does not say it, or not so clearly. In its last population projection, of 2024, the Official Statistics Agency of the Generalitat manages three scenarios (bass, medium and high). Only in the latter, which marks one of the extremes (so it is less likely to occur, according to experts) points to those 10 million, a figure that, hypothetically, would be reached in 2052. “To get there, the immigration growth must be even more intense and stay in time. And the historical experience, based on economic cycles, and depending on the circumstances of the countries of origin,” explains Juan Antonio. of the Center for Demographic Studies (CED) who, however, applauds that it will think big. “In terms of planning, it is good to keep in mind maximum growth. It is better to think more than less.”
That idea ―Sonsize the future so that they are not seen, as now, the seams of the system – underlies the projections of the Government, which tries to identify the needs of each area: health and education, housing, natural resources (water), territorial balance and environment, infrastructure, transport, and a long etc. The key tool, they point out, will be the General Territorial Plan of Catalonia, which was approved in 1995 thinking about six million and has been outdated. Touches “to raise the bases of a new plan that does not remain narrow before starting,” he explains to this newspaper, housing and ecological transition.
“Some infrastructure that were then thought have ended now. But the country is different, it has grown, and will be transformed at even faster speed because the world has accelerated,” says Terrades, critical of which the defense of the decrease is used as a disguise to reject immigration. “To be sustainable, we need people in the labor market, wherever they come from. It makes me funny that the right does not question when people come from outside with the portfolio well full, only when they come to work.”
“A country without children must have migrants”
Of the labor market in Catalonia (and the specific weight of immigration) knows a time Mariña Couceiro, sociologist of the Cipriano García Foundation. She is the author of: The revitalization of the labor market in recent years is due to migrants, which already represent 26% of those employed. Foreigners occupy the most precarious works, charge the worst salaries and suffer more the submerged economy: some 160,000 work even though they are in an irregular administrative situation, according to the study. “In Catalonia, immigration has been the engine of population growth and we cannot separate it from economic growth.” He says.
Couceiro admits that there are “challenges” in the face of any population growth, but comes to say that there is much more to win. “It would be necessary to talk to people about the consequences of a demographic decrease.” Says the sociologist, who contributes a new data, of 2024, which did not appear in the study: “100% of the net increase of the active population in Catalonia has been thanks to the people born abroad. Without them you cannot understand a future of economic and social prosperity,” says Couceir It is now interested in the decrease. “It is xenophobia dressed in concern for sustainability. If they are worried about that issue, there are many measures that could already be taken.”
To whom does worry in a genuine way the matter is to Jaume Grau, spokesman, who names reflections such as Orriols: “Ecofascism”. “That resources are limited and a growth rate cannot be held like the current one is evidence. Given that, eco -fascism says: ” We are going to defend the privileges of a minority. ‘Social justice replicates that there is a wealth of leftovers so that we live with dignity.” Grau points out that an “population increase of 25%” () “raises many challenges”, for example, in feeding or water consumption. But above all, in housing. “If it is now one of the least real rights, I do not know where we would see each other. Although we believe that migrating is a right, housing can make them materially impossible to migrate.”
You have to return to modems, the CED researcher, because it is his object of study. “The population grows at a higher speed than the housing stock grows. And this is a challenge not for 10 million, but for now.” On the high stage of Idescat, he says, “we would have to build 600,000 new homes in 30 years”, which means about 20,000 homes per year. Beyond the rejection that can raise growth and how that is compatible or not with a “environmentally sustainable” Catalonia, Mdenes says that it would be a “relatively acceptable” challenge.
According to the latest Idescat data, in Catalonia about 14,000 homes are finished every year, but there is an “important decalage” with the needs of the population: “During the bubble of the beginning of the century, there was some coherence between what was built and the growth of households, there was some demographic justification. But now the internal demand has disappeared.” Mdenes points out that “it is reasonable to think” that Catalonia remains the engine of population growth and that is why it is important “think not in terms of how many we are now, but how many we will be in the future.” As the historian Anna Cabré has pointed out in her work The migratory waves in the Catalan reproduction systemgrowth has not been flat and placid, but “rather spasmodic, in large waves.”
A “miracle” for transportation
The Catalans of the future, how many are, will continue to need to move. And public transport now leaves much to be desired. “The transport network has deficiencies of all kinds, especially in Rodalies, but not only. If the population reached 10 million, this problem would be aggravated. It will be almost a miracle that, no matter how much it is planned, an optimal situation is reached in 2050,” reflects Joan Carles Salmerón, director of Terminus-Centre d’Estudis del Transport. Salmerón also applauds that not only the most pressing and obvious problems are faced (such as Rodalies chaos), but that “you begin to think, urgently, what will be needed for the coming years.”
Salmerón warns about a challenge that looms and does not affect alone, but also, transport: territorial imbalances. “We are concentrating 5 or 6 million people in the metropolitan area, but we have a good regional rail network that could host population growth in Camp de Tarragona, Girona or Lleida,” says the expert, who sees two large lines of work to improve the service: one, “increase the capacity and resistance” of the system; The other, “that the network is very capillary, not only in the big axes.”
In education, the challenge in all likelihood will not have to serve more students, but to do better. “I am not sure that the student population will grow. Foreigners arrive in Spain in adulthood, to work. And, even if they have more children, the native fertility rate is very low,” reflects Lucas Gortázar, director of ESADEECPOL. “We are going to a greater land. The sociocultural level of families is going down and a collective effort will have to be made,” adds this educational policy expert. The solution is to put more resources. “We come from a secular financing deficit, and to address complexity it is necessary to invest more.” And that serves education, but, surely, also for everything else.
