The Economic Process: A New Fairytale for Catalonia
The head of La Caixa offers a telling reflection of Barcelona’s current crossroad
The recent media adulation of Isidre Fainé, the head of La Caixa, offers a telling reflection of Catalonia’s current political and economic crossroads. While Fainé is celebrated as a symbol of power, his elevation speaks less to his strength than to the crumbling legacy of a bygone era. This celebration of Fainé represents the fading remnants of a system that has long kept Catalonia tethered to Madrid’s influence, at the cost of the region’s true sovereignty.
While the media showers Fainé with praise, it’s essential to understand the deeper reasons behind this tribute. Fainé, though seemingly untouchable, is a figure shaped by a history of caution and control—one that comes with its own shadow of decline. No one can fully feel secure within the Spanish state, and Fainé, above all, understands the importance of maintaining order, ensuring that no one steps out of line. But the recent wave of praise feels less like a celebration of his power and more like the remnants of a system in decline. To me, it feels like the wreckage left behind by a world dissolving.
The president of the La Caixa Foundation is not merely the last influential figure from a crumbling regime. He represents the final vestiges of a century-and-a-half-old pact between the bourgeoisie of Barcelona and the Spanish monarchy. This agreement, forged in the wake of failed revolutions, saw Catalonia give up on leading Spanish politics in exchange for dominance over its economy. The metaphors of Catalonia as Spain’s “locomotive” or “ship” stem from this forgotten pact.
If the independence referendum arose from an attempt to prolong political Catalanism through sentimental exaltation disguised as audacity, then the praise showered on Fainé suggests we are witnessing yet another headlong rush—this time disguised as economic management. Just as political Catalanism never renounced independence but never took the steps to achieve it, Catalonia’s economic elite has never relinquished its ambition to dominate Spain—even at the cost of abandoning its own sovereignty. Fainé, and the shadow he casts, cannot be understood without considering the void left by the failed Gas Natural takeover of Iberdrola. That failure, quashed with a phone call from Minister Rato after Pujol handed Aznar the presidency, epitomizes the limits of Catalonia’s power.
Fear of reopening the wound of the independence referendum has given Catalonia’s economic establishment the leeway to go on the offensive through the PSOE. As I write this, I see a news alert: Pedro Sánchez and Salvador Illa want to strip Madrid of “power” to make Barcelona Spain’s economic capital. Pasqual Maragall’s decentralization obsession is back, but this time stripped of its cultural and democratic pretense. The plan is to inject money into Barcelona to offset the fiscal deficit, in exchange for dissolving the independence movement. At a time when developed nations are turning protectionist and cutting foreign aid, it’s hardly surprising that the Spanish press portrays Fainé as a protector of the poor.
As one of the flatterers pointed out in an ABC column, Fainé is now over eighty and has no heirs. He is a man of the 20th century, doing business in the way it was done in that era, and he represents a Catalonia still stuck in the 20th century. Just as political Catalanism began producing rhetorical monstrosities after Pujol’s retirement, the spirit of the old bourgeoisie now gives rise to its own economic processism. After a century and a half of dragging itself through coups, dictatorships, and civil wars, Catalonia finds itself bound to Madrid in an absurd union—especially as Spain’s capital aspires to be the geopolitical bridge between Brussels and China.
The recent Gattopardo adaptation on Netflix, though it feels more like a Pretty Woman knockoff, might serve as a wake-up call for Catalans: do we want to be fleeced again in the name of money? If we let ourselves be lulled by this old comedy, we will soon find ourselves in the same position as we were with the independence referendum. Only this time, with the PSC in power, the excuses will be the same. We will once again be told that we almost succeeded, that a masterstroke was within reach, but that Spanish fanaticism and Catalan disunity doomed the “new country”—inclusive and antifascist—that was just within our grasp.