The Catalan business elite on Monday reproached Pedro Sánchez for the pernicious effects of the regulation on the housing market that the Government is promoting together with its left-wing partners.
The reproach took place in a closed-door meeting that the head of the Executive held on Monday at noon at the Pedralbes Palace in Barcelona with the representatives of the so-called G8, a group that brings together the main Catalan business organizations and which includes the Círculo de Economía, the Barcelona Chamber, the College of Economists, Racc, Barcelona Global, the employers' associations Pimec and Femcat, and Fira de Barcelona; although the president of the latter organization, Pau Relat, was not present at the meeting. Nor was that of the Foment employers' association, led by Josep Sánchez Llibre, who has maintained a cold relationship with Salvador Illa since he criticized the financing model agreed with ERC and who is not part of the G8, a group much more similar to the president of the Generalitat.
Despite their closeness with the president, the members of the G8 were "frank and forceful" with Sánchez, according to what sources present at the conclave told EL MUNDO, which was also attended by Illa, the delegate of the Government in Catalonia, Carles Prieto, and the director of the President's Office of Economic Affairs, Manuel Rocha.
"With a total confluence of opinion" among their spokespersons, the G8 members stressed to the president "that their housing policy is more focused on creating obstacles than promoting construction." And they reproached him for “that all his measures were focused on demonizing private construction. "In telling the builder: 'don't build apartments because it is not a safe business as it is an intervened business.'" The businessmen conveyed these impressions to the head of the Executive on the eve of the approval in the Council of Ministers of the anti-eviction decree that the PSOE ended up agreeing with Sumar, and in which the recipes of the left are privileged, instead of seeking consensus.
"We told him that it was not the most appropriate time to regulate because it is an emotionally very sensitive time and in which there is a lot of demagoguery," the same sources add to show their reluctance regarding the new regulatory framework, which has yet to be validated by Congress.
Sánchez, who like Illa "was basically listening attentively, practically did not intervene and seemed surprised," according to participants in the meeting, refuted "that more public housing is being built than ever," to which the businessmen responded that "the housing problem will not be solved with public housing alone, because incentives are necessary for the private investor to build housing, because, if not, there will not be enough for the population."
The meeting "was not formal, but rather an exchange of opinions," according to sources present, and other issues were also discussed, such as the need to promote legal measures "to promote the growth of companies," because "the bureaucratic and fiscal obstacles are many and represent a barrier."
The issue of new regional financing was also put on the table. The G8 assumed before Pedro Sánchez that Junts will end up allowing the processing of the model agreed with ERC so that it can later be improved before being submitted to a final vote in the Congress of Deputies. The businessmen asked Sánchez for "an effort" so that these improvements can arrive and that Junts ends up supporting the financing.
The members of the G8 also demanded "some type of paragovernmental control" to "monitor the execution of the Budgets", especially in the items aimed at correcting "the infrastructure deficit suffered by Catalonia." "What cannot be is that the works are budgeted and are not executed," the representatives of the business community said to Sánchez, who, they insist, "gave an image of great unity, because there were no differences," since the claims had been agreed upon by the president's interlocutors before the meeting began.
