Taxes are not “the determining cause for the transfer and implementation of new companies and projects in the counties of Lleida to Aragon.” The Secretary of the Treasury of the Generalitat, Marta Espasa, included this conclusion in a recent presentation on the possible impact of taxation on the relocation of companies from Lleida. The presentation proves that the tax burden is very similar in Catalonia and Aragon and states that, although the former has more taxes of its own, they raise little money and affect “very specific sectors that are difficult to relocate.”
We accept, therefore, that taxation is not an obstacle. But the problem must be whether the Generalitat analyzes the causes of this phenomenon. So what explains why companies from Lleida go to Aragon?
If we start from the beginning, there are no statistics that show how many companies have taken this step. A very recent study carried out by researchers from the University of Lleida and Pompeu Fabra, presented to Parliament at the end of March, shows that 428 companies left the province of Lleida between 2015 and 2020 (and, by the way, almost half of these companies went to the province of Barcelona). But this data refers to headquarters – almost always cosmetic transfers, if not fictitious – and does not include the transfer of factories or workers, which is what would really be worrying.
So, can it be said that there are companies that really leave Lleida? Should they close a factory and open it a little further west? It is difficult to reach this conclusion, according to the directors of three companies representing the area: in Aragon ”, says a big businessman who asks not to be identified.
“Political and technical agility”
We continue to solve the problem: it is no longer so much that companies leave but that existing companies choose to grow abroad instead of in Lleida. And why? In this the consensus is absolute between the three companies. “The political and technical agility of the Aragonese government is brutal: if you call them, after 48 hours they are already receiving you, and they are going very fast,” says one of them. “Between opening a store in Lleida or opening it in Fraga, which is next door, there is a big difference in advantages,” adds another. The third explains what he values most: “Being able to work together with the top officials of the Aragonese government”, apart from “collaboration in obtaining aid, training, etc.”. “In a relatively short time we were building [una nova planta]”, add.
This agility and ease are explained, the same voices reiterate, because Aragon “has seen that they are either agile or their territory is being depopulated.” “There are many companies in Lleida and not in Fraga, and they have to be smart.” “They are between Navarre and Catalonia,” they recall. And a sentence: “Everything is going well in Catalonia by inertia”.
And there is still another key issue, which is that in Aragon there is more land availability. “If you have Lleida very full, which is true, the natural growth is to go to Aragon, but that does not mean that there are certain factories that could be put in Catalonia and that we would not have to lose,” says a d ‘these voices.
There is a lot of land available in Aragon, but the problem is that in Catalonia “we don’t know exactly how much land we have available,” says Jordi Moreno, one of the study’s authors. “The data is very different depending on whether it comes from the Department of Economy or the same laws that Parliament processes,” he said before explaining that, according to the source taken, the available land is between 37% and 75%. If that’s not even clear, maybe we have a problem.
Protagonists
Marc Puig, president of the perfume company that bears his last name, has always been a reserved person with the media and in the face of public exposure. He has never wanted to be president of the Circle of Economy, for example, but he did accept the presidency of the Family Business Institute, a position he has held since 2020 and which he will soon leave because his term is coming to an end. Now that he has folded, he has let go and criticized the Generalitat’s policy with family businesses. And it has gone more unnoticed, but it has also supported Madrid’s fiscal policy. In an interview with Actualidad Económica a few days ago, he was asked: “Do you think that taxes need to be harmonized because Madrid’s fiscal policy hurts Catalonia and other communities?” His answer was clear and concise: “No.” In his opinion, “in the US each state has different taxes and in Spain it can also work with differences.”
The councilors of Barcelona en Comú in the city council of the Catalan capital have their salary limited by their own decision. In the first term, the salary was 2,200 euros net, and this is what they all received. All of them? No. The Councilor for Trade, Agustí Colom, received an additional 1,000 euros gross thanks to the three years he had accumulated as a member of the Audit Office for seven years (2004-2011). Colom is no longer a councilor, but today he continues to receive the 1,000 euros a month (with extra payments) that he accumulated thanks to the fact that he was a trustee, even though he no longer works there, as Núria Orriols revealed to ARA.