“The big problem of this legislature is that there has been no industrial policy.” With this diagnosis, Jordi Turull, Secretary General of Junts, opened his remarks in the special session of the Reindustrialization Symposium, promoted by beBartlet with Agenda Pública as media partner. The leader placed the lack of industrial planning, energy costs, and the infrastructure deficit among the main obstacles to Catalonia’s competitiveness, and urged for greater political and economic decision-making power from the Generalitat.
Turull was critical of the central government’s management and blamed it for the blockage of fundamental initiatives to regain the industrial weight in the economy. As an example, he pointed to the lack of progress in the processing of the new Industry Law, which he identified as one of the Ministry’s main pending commitments. In his view, the parliamentary dependence of the PSOE on its left-wing partners has contributed to a paralysis where the Government “neither acts nor lets others act”.
Energy, infrastructure and legal certainty
Industrial competitiveness focused much of Turull’s reflections, who identified three priorities: reduce energy and logistics costs, guarantee legal certainty, and remove bureaucratic barriers that hinder business activity. In this last area, he defended administrative simplification that allows projects and investments to move faster, with mechanisms such as a one-stop shop.
On the energy front, he called for moving toward greater self-sufficiency and questioned the regulatory uncertainty that, in his view, affects investment decisions. In particular, he criticized the lack of clarity about the timetable for closing nuclear plants and the difficulties in advancing electrification and the deployment of renewable energy sources.
He also argued that fiscal policies should accompany the processes of industrial transformation, rather than penalize companies investing in decarbonization. In this sense, he highlighted as an example Junts’ intervention to avoid a rise in tax pressure on Tarragona’s petrochemical installations, an action that, according to him, helped preserve strategic investments linked to modernization and the energy transition.
“Turull was critical of the central government’s management and held it responsible for the blockage of fundamental initiatives to restore the weight of industry in the economy”
Infrastructure formed another axis of his diagnosis. Turull denounced low budget execution levels and the insufficient commitment to freight rail transport. In particular, Junts believes that the accumulated delays in the Mediterranean Corridor reflect a political prioritization of the radial infrastructure model, centered on Madrid, which harms the competitiveness of the industry and the Catalan ports.
During the moving session of the Symposium, Turull emphasized the new Industry Law as an urgent priority.
Greater autonomy for decision-making to regain industrial weight
Turull argued that Catalonia’s industrial recovery must be supported by an economy with higher added value, capable of leveraging its talent and productive tradition. He recalled that Catalonia managed to solidify its industrial status since the first industrial revolution despite lacking its own energy resources like coal, thanks to its entrepreneurial capacity and human capital.
However, he warned that these advantages will not suffice without a competitive framework that encourages investment and helps retain talent. For this, he deemed essential to have greater competencies, resources and execution capacity in strategic areas such as taxation, energy and infrastructures.
“What we are asking is that from Catalonia we can do everything that Madrid neither does nor allows to be done,” he summarized. A claim that he tied directly to the need for Catalonia to possess greater political strength and influence in state decisions.
“He argued that Catalonia’s industrial recovery must be supported by an economy with higher added value, capable of leveraging its talent and productive tradition”
On the political front, and ahead of the electoral date on the 29N, Turull reaffirmed the role of Junts as a force capable of conditioning the central government’s decisions. In this sense, he maintained that much of the results of his parliamentary activity cannot be measured solely by the initiatives approved, but also by those measures that the party has managed to block, especially in the economic and business sphere. “The great success of Junts is what we have blocked more than what we have achieved, but many of these things will never be made public,” he stated.
The leader highlighted the difficulty of conveying this message in the current electoral context and asserted that defending Catalonia’s interests does not imply acting to the detriment of Spaniards as a whole.
“The great success of Junts is what we have blocked more than what we have achieved, but many of these things will never be made public”
The intervention thus articulated a central thesis: for Junts, Catalan reindustrialization depends as much on reviving an active industrial policy as on the region’s capacity to decide on the factors that determine its competitiveness. A stance that positioned the future of the industry debate at the intersection of business needs, investment priorities, and the territorial distribution of political power.
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