"Escape, tender people, this land is sick, and do not expect tomorrow what it did not give you yesterday," Serrat sang. His verses drew the abandonment of the peoples of Spain and today, exactly forty years after the release of his song
Pueblo Blanco
-and pandemic in between-, rural depopulation in Europe represents one of the greatest challenges for all the countries of the Union . However, despite the ravages of the coronavirus, in the new economic policies of Brussels, and together with the impulse of the
Next Generation EU
funds
,
a large-scale implementation plan is being proposed to reverse the consequences of rural depopulation, as well as to improve the quality of life of its inhabitants and promote the return to the villages. One of its weapons will be digitization.
The
Green and Digital Europe
cycle
, which responds to the global need to develop a society more committed to the environment, is made up of a series of conferences focused on issues of various sectoral interests, where the greatest challenges and challenges at the level of sustainability are discussed. and in which authorities, institutions and companies participate. Thus, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of elmundo.es, the meeting
Challenges to reverse depopulated Spain
was organized
; For a new territorial connection
, which had the star intervention of the Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms of the European Union,
Elisa Ferreira.
The event sponsored by Endesa also had the participation of various experts. Among them,
Francisco Boya
, general secretary for the Demographic Challenge at the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge;
Miguel Temboury Molina
, Director of Institutional Relations at Endesa;
Alejandro Macarrón
, founder and general director of the Demographic Renaissance Foundation;
Abel Caballero,
the president of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces;
Secundino Caso
, president of the Spanish Network for Rural Development;
Mercedes Molina
, Emeritus Professor of Human Geography at the Complutense University of Madrid; and
Ginés de Rus
, Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Las Palmas and associate researcher at FEDEA.
The debate was moderated by
Miguel Ors
, from ACTUALIDAD ECONÓMICA.
The rural depopulation of Spain is one of the main problems facing the country.
The way we live has changed and with it the Spanish demographics.
"In the nineteenth century more than half of the population worked in the fields, however, today
only 2% of the population is needed to produce all the food we consume,
" said the moderator.
Miguel Temboury Molina, Director of Institutional Relations at Endesa El Mundo
Imbalance between the urban and rural world
In this context, the population is concentrated in the cities, where salaries are more competitive and productivity is higher. Therefore, the externalities of this situation lead to both rural depopulation and abandonment of the environment, unleashing serious environmental, social and economic consequences that are extrapolated to fatalities such as
the great fire in Portugal in 2017
. However, cities are not exempt from externalities such as pollution, traffic jams and other problems. Thus, the debate focused on discussing the stretch of political decisions that have led rural areas to a situation of abandonment and the seriousness that this implies for the future of the country, adding as a key factor,
the low birth rate that accompanies this crisis
.
"Give me a long enough lever and a place to push it and I'll move the earth."
With this appointment by
Archimedes,
Elisa Ferreira valued the new territorial cohesion policy of the European Union in the face of European funds.
For Ferreira, cohesion policy is that lever, and one of the "most important" policies for Europe to ensure sustainable, digital and inclusive change.
In this context, "in the European program 2014-2020, cohesion policy has represented 17% of public investment in Spain; 1 out of every 6 euros of public investment has been provided by cohesion policy", assured Ferreira.
Alejandro Macarrón, founder and general director of the Demographic Renaissance Foundation El Mundo
The Commissioner has identified Spain as one of the main beneficiaries of European assistance in the face of Covid-19. "Spain has received three billion euros in financing, almost two billion euros in personal protective equipment and 2,200 respirators", in addition to "10 billion euros per year from investment in cohesion policy to promote a green policy and digital ", he specified. For Ferreira it is essential to carry out the "digital literacy" of individuals and companies since "only 1 in 5" is prepared for the transition.
Ferreria noted a clear paradigm shift:
Investments are undergoing a gradual shift from a traditional growth model based on hard investments in physical infrastructure to a soft investment model
. For the Commissioner, the focus is now on the economy based on knowledge and human capital. "In the traditional model, two thirds of the European Regional Development fund has been allocated to hard infrastructure, compared to only a third in soft infrastructure. This has changed and these proportions have been invested: two thirds of investments are focused on investment, innovation , digitization of SMEs and an economy increasingly low in carbon. This means that the cohesion policy has changed and that it will do so even more, "he said.
Ginés de Rus, Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Las Palmas El Mundo
Spain will be a major beneficiary of funds, and Ferreira provided the figures: during this year's new programs our country will receive more than 35 billion euros from cohesion policy and 70 billion from grants from the
Recovery and Resilience fund.
This will mean more than 2,200 euros of investment for each man, woman or child in Spain, "a unique opportunity in a generation to promote the green and digital revolution," he said.
In Europe
, rural areas are home to 137 million inhabitants,
representing 30% of the European population, and are facing depopulation and economic decline. These areas cover more than 80% of the territory of the EU. "Rural areas are key to our goals of sustainability, transportation, food and sustainable agriculture," he said. Although these have different characteristics, and although some prosper economically, 61% of the rural population lives in a declining region. Ferreira highlights that
there is a difference of up to 50 percentage points between the average GDP in rural and urban areas
, with the problem of a young population leaving these places, an aging population, and a low birth rate.
However, for Ferreira the pandemic has opened up a possibility that could "represent a great opportunity" to transform the reality of these places: remote work. "Teleworking could make urban and rural centers compete on equal terms, but to take advantage of this opportunity you have to make significant investments," he warned, referring to connections, improvement of health services, innovation and support for young people. Along these lines, he took the opportunity to highlight the work of the EU in areas such as Cantabria, Castilla y León and Castilla la Mancha, and highlighted the importance of the involvement of local people. "We need architects and designers of the future. That is why I ask locals to get involved in programming and execution,providing ideas and energy to rebuild better after the crisis, "he urged.
For Mercedes Molina, traditional territorial cohesion "has not worked." In his opinion, Spain requires that the transformation of its economy be associated with a new management of the territory, since the transition from an agrarian economy to one based on industry and services has generated "short-term economic growth where GDP, income and employment were fundamental
without seeing the costs associated with that growth
. " For Molina, this model, based on the concentration of investment and the production of employment and population in cities, also gave rise to urban speculation, and to "purely urban" legislation. This laid the foundation for "a competitiveness gap between rural and urban areas that triggered
forced socioeconomic migration
, "he declared.
Secundino Caso, president of the Spanish Rural Development Network El Mundo
"The city was the place of efficiency and progress and innovation and the rural world remained relegated to maintaining its basic productions without a value chain," he said.
For Molina, depopulated territories are "the paragidma of inequality" and he pointed to the political efforts of the last decades: "This problem became visible in the year 78 and the framework program of the EU of 94-99 indicated that there were uninhabited territories in Spain had to invest in infrastructure, environment and heritage but this recommendation was ignored ", said the professor.
However, Molina sees a change and reiterated the demand for a new economy and a new territorial management "where intermediate cities and rural territories, in close symbiosis, are protagonists."
In this sense, the emeritus professor urged a state pact "with content" that empowers rural actors.
"If in good times we have been able to generate so much inequality, can we do the opposite in a context of crisis?"
Abel Caballero, president of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces El Mundo
From his economic perspective, Ginés de Rus expressed that "the increase in the density of workers in urban areas increases productivity, therefore concentration from the point of view of economic growth is good." In addition, for Rus, increased connectivity and improved infrastructure can increase urban concentration. "The latest report from the
Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility
(AIRef) shows that provincial disparities have skyrocketed due to transportation policy. In other words, it is possible that the improvement in infrastructure increases that concentration," he said.
For
Secundino Caso
, trends change more: "More and more people are going to live an hour from the city where they work and choose to live in rural areas. However, a person who lives in the center of Madrid and a who live in the countryside have the same right to have health, education and social services, "he said.
The two causes of depopulation
"The norm has been to educate our children to leave the towns but we have never thought that what we needed was for them to return; to return was a symbol of failure, and that is a topic that must be overcome," said
Francisco Boya .
For him, it is essential that there is a framework of cooperation between the public and private sectors so that it allows generating the conditions that prevent talent from escaping from rural towns.
Alejandro Macarrón added one more factor to the phenomenon of depopulation: the low birth rate.
"If you talk about empty Spain, yes or yes you have to talk about birth rates," he emphasized.
Macarrón stressed that of the factors that make up the demographic challenge, this is the most serious.
"In 2019 the provinces that lost population due to Spanish migration would not have lost anything if they had had 2.1 children per woman," he said, adding: "Spain is not going to be viable if more children are not born."
In addition, he put his finger on the phenomenon of foreign migration.
Mercedes Molina, Emeritus Professor of Human Geography at the Complutense University of Madrid El Mundo
"We have migration with less economic cohesion with the native population of all Western Europe, where there is the greatest difference in average income between immigrants that we have from any country and the native population," he explained.
In this sense, for the expert it is essential that immigration integrates very well with the local population.
"We have very low rates of mixed marriages, especially with populations of African and Asian origin. People have an affinity bias, but if that fusion does not occur, we will have ghettos," he warned.
Companies and the rural environment
"This is going to be a boom and the National Plan for energy and climate estimates that by 2030 74% of electrical energy has to be renewable, that means that we have to multiply by 2.5 times the capacity of wind and solar energy that it has Spain, and this will be done in remote areas, "Miguel Temboury told Endesa. The company, which has launched numerous initiatives in view of the increased demand for renewable energy, assures that it is committed to the rural environment through the
Recovery and Resilience plan.
"90% of the employment that is generated will be local," said Temboury.
"There is a torturous debate because rural people, who have always felt neglected, now see how companies come to take advantage of the beauty of rural areas and its resources to generate energy for large cities. It cannot be that they only remember now. We have left the rural world without services and opportunities and now we turn to it for many things, "argued Secundino Caso. He also pointed out that "no one, in any place where he lives, be it urban or rural, wants to do without the Welfare State." "We cannot forget that the model that has generated this inequality has been created with public investment," Molina supported him.
64% of rural municipalities in Spain lost population continuously
. 3,961 municipalities, 48% have a density of less than 12 inhabitants per square km, but 3,135 municipalities, 38% of the total, do not reach 8 inhabitants per square km
. These were the worrying figures that Abel Caballero gave. "How many resources do we want to dedicate to the phenomenon of depopulation? We have to dedicate more resources to small and medium-sized municipalities so that they can launch forms of quality of life and different economies and industries," he urged.
In addition, in an instance to make the problem visible, he criticized the fact that the health authorities use mass vaccination points in the cities and forget about the towns, which must travel several kilometers roundtrip to receive immunization. "This is an example of what not to do, you have to bring services to rural areas because otherwise the phenomenon of depopulation is going to accelerate; in institutional terms a city council of 50,000 people is just as important as the city of Madrid he snapped.
Most of the speakers agreed that management policies have been a failure that, through public money, have financed the creation of a territorial inequality whose statistics scream integral solutions that could be satisfied with a "change of mentality" and the arrival of the European Funds.
The question now is that the verses of Joan Manuel Serrat are nothing more than a portrait of the past and not a premonition of the future that awaits us.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more
economy
HousingHorche, the rebellion of a Guadalajara town against squatters: "It has become a ghetto"
InterviewErika Mouynes: "It hurts whoever hurts, Panama is committed to transparency"
EnvironmentEnagás and Facsa join forces to create biomethane with wastewater
See links of interest
Last News
Holidays 2021
Home THE WORLD TODAY
Podcast Economia
Tour de France: stage 18, live: Pau - Luz Ardiden