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Obscenity
🇪🇸 Spain /Economy & Trade

Obscenity

From La Vanguardia · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • The article criticizes Spain's public investment model, arguing it disproportionately favors Madrid over Catalonia.
  • It highlights that Catalonia, despite contributing significantly to Spain's GDP, receives less than its proportional share of state investment, a pattern repeated across governments.
  • The author contends this persistent inequality harms Catalonia's competitiveness and Spain's overall economic growth, urging for a more equitable distribution of resources.

The article "Obscenidad" from La Vanguardia directly confronts what it terms the "obscenity" of Spain's public investment policies, particularly focusing on the persistent disparity between investment in Madrid and Catalonia. It opens by referencing a stark headline: "The State invested more than double in Madrid than in Catalonia in 2025." This is not framed as a matter of perception or political grievance, but as a cold, hard fact derived from budgets and infrastructure spending.

The State invested more than double in Madrid than in Catalonia in 2025.

— La VanguardiaThis headline is cited as evidence of the significant disparity in state investment between Madrid and Catalonia.

Catalonia, the piece emphasizes, represents a "fifth part of the wealth of this country" and is a "great industrial, exporter and innovator engine." Yet, when public investment is allocated, this significant economic weight "disappears." The author laments that this pattern is not a recent anomaly but a recurring issue, "Year after year, government after government." Despite changes in political majorities, ministers, and promises, the outcome remains the same: a systematic "model that punishes one of the territories that contributes most to collective prosperity."

Catalonia represents around a fifth of the wealth of this country.

— La VanguardiaThis statement highlights Catalonia's significant economic contribution to Spain, contrasting it with its share of public investment.

The article argues that Madrid certainly deserves its necessary investments, but questions the justification for a "permanent concentration of resources" that defies "any criterion of territorial balance or economic proportionality." The consequences are tangible: saturated railway networks, long-delayed infrastructure projects, insufficient roads, slowed logistics corridors, and missed opportunities for businesses competing globally. This imbalance, the author stresses, does not just harm Catalonia; it also hinders Spain as a whole by stifling the growth of one of its primary economic engines.

But when it comes to distributing public investment, that weight disappears.

— La VanguardiaThis phrase describes the perceived neglect of Catalonia in public investment despite its economic importance.

Ultimately, the piece calls for a change in policy from the Catalan government, advocating for "political intelligence and negotiating firmness" rather than "sterile confrontation or permanent victimhood." It asserts that territorial equality requires solidarity, but solidarity should not be mistaken for "structural penalization." When a region that contributes the most systematically receives less than its due share of investment, the social cohesion of the country begins to "crack." The author concludes that some imbalances are debatable, but others "only admit one qualifier" – obscenity.

A model that systematically punishes one of the territories that contributes most to collective prosperity.

— La VanguardiaThis describes the author's view of the long-standing investment disparity as a deliberate, harmful model.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by La Vanguardia in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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