DANI CORDERO BARCELONA – 28 FEB 2021 – 20:32 CET
The president of Foment del Treball, Josep Sánchez Llibre, last Thursday in Barcelona.DAVID ZORRAKINO / EUROPA PRESS
Ad nauseam. It is the word that describes thefeeling with which the Catalan business world lives through the new violent incidents that have the streets of Catalan municipalities and, especially, Barcelona as the scene. Complaining for months about the inaction that affects the Generalitat as a whole, the protests over the imprisonment of Pablo Hasél have filled their patience and a hundred organizations led by Foment del Treball are preparing a unitary act for next Thursday in which they intend to demand a forceful response from the Administration to the violent protests.
In the draft of the manifesto in which its message will be articulated, the business community demands that the Government and all the municipalities “exercise their democratic authority and responsibility without complexes” with the argument that the protests are producing on the image of Catalonia and Barcelona a collapse “to levels never seen before”.
“The apparent paralysis of the government has been aggravated by the violent and uncivil behavior of recent weeks”, says the document that EL PAÍS has had access to. The signatory organizations defend respect for the rights of assembly and demonstration, but call for practicing them in a “civic and peaceful” way. “No cause justifies violent attitudes”, reads a text that considers these the best allies for the destruction of employment.
Representatives of Foment del Treball held a meeting last week with the councillor of Interior, Miquel Sàmper, and the councillor of Business, Ramon Tremosa, in which there were hints that the protests could be sustained over time and whose origin were small groups of very radicalized young people. In the document drawn up for Thursday’s event, it is stated that the altercations “have precedents and we fear that they may be repeated”. In one of their points of claim, the businessmen make clear the need for political formations to condemn acts of protest without ambiguity: “that these acts be the object of the most absolute condemnation, without any soothing circumstance”. And they show their support for the security forces.
Beyond the complaints about the latest altercations, the business world also urges political formations to form a new Government of the Generalitat “without delay”. They ask for it to be stable, cohesive and active, marking economic reactivation as its main priority. “This is not the time for political disputes”, claims the text, which also calls for a plan of 50,000 million direct aid for companies and the self-employed throughout Spain affected by the coronavirus crisis.
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