Relevance

It is very common – especially of late - for the business world to issue judgements and to draw up studies in this respect. And most of them manifest concern. However, this report, unlike other similar documents, has a particularity that makes it unique. From the first page it speaks of a general decline in this country’s competitiveness and relevance. Not solely competitiveness, but relevance, too. Competitiveness is on everyone’s lips, above all in the financial world, yet relevance is not. This is a great error. Since being relevant is more than being competitive. It includes being competitive but embraces much more. Moreover, it is hard to be truly competitive if, primarily, there is no desire to seek relevance. If there is no vital attitude, no will, no self-imposed standard of excellence to seek relevance, to stand out, to possess quality. Economic competitiveness is an extremely important manifestation, of this more comprehensive attitude, but it is not the only one.

The fact is that the entrepreneur association’s report in question reassesses – and does so as a business association – the main problems that concern them: universities, human resources, R+D, the globalisation of companies and, naturally, infrastructures.  All are covered, from the airport to suburban trains, and from roads to industrials parks to the fourth ring road. And the electricity power grid. But the report also examines two subjects of which the business world speaks rarely or never. It is highly commendable that this document does.

In first place, the National Health Service. This is positive, not merely because health is also a factor of competitiveness, but also because the necessary economic progress and company effectiveness must not let us – or the business world – lose sight of the fact that the well-being of the people is one of society’s top priorities. Secondly, the association addresses what it defines as the Country. Specifically, it states: “We hold that we are losing the identity of the country, and the traits with which we have historically and traditionally identified ourselves. We believe that this without a doubt is the most pressing question and one that is least considered generally speaking in society, in the media and in the institutions”. This is a stark but accurate criticism.

The stance adopted should be welcomed for two reasons. First, because it demonstrates a sensitivity to everything that falls within the sphere of general interest. Far too often our demands are made in terms of markedly economic interests. More often, of an interest that directly or indirectly affects us personally (on the level of an individual or of a business, association, etc.). For this reason many people mobilise or protest. But we should not only focus on the motorway toll fees – which represent a personal burden -, but the financing of the Generalitat, which means schools, hospitals, culture, language, justice, etc. One tends to be less sensitive to the latter.

Secondly, we need to congratulate this business association for unequivocally calling for a more robust defence of the Catalan identity.

The great thrust that Catalonia experienced during the latter part of the 19th century and the entire 20th century was not solely economic, cultural, social or artistic. It was a combination of all of them. It was a great all-embracing movement that – consciously or not, but effectively – sought to be RELEVANT. It sought excellence. It sought a high international level. It sought importance. Consequently, it also sought competitiveness. Thus, it engendered a state of encouragement, a collective aspiration that impregnated everything, a confidence and a creative self-esteem that extended from manufacturers – as they were called then - to cultural associations, from the Autonomous University of the thirties to the cooperatives. This all contributed to forging, in a few decades, a relevant country. It also allowed the recovery after a great disaster.

Catalanism, in all its variants, drove this intellectual and political, social and cultural, and also economic movement. Because although its goal to safeguard the Catalan identity, it only made sense, it was only possible if Catalonia succeeded in becoming a worthy country. For those within and those without. A relevant country.
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It is for this reason that we are grateful that precisely a markedly economic association speaks not only about the decline in competition, but also in relevance. This is fair and above all intelligent.

We should be even more thankful it states that this is linked to “the identity of the country, the traits with which we have historically and traditionally identified ourselves”.  And that it complains that this has not been taken sufficiently into account “nor by society, nor the media nor the Institutions”.