The president of the Asociación Valenciana de Empresarios (Valencian Association of Entrepreneurs), Vicente Boluda, has expressed his “concern” about the pacts that Sánchez has agreed to continue in the Moncloa and has denounced that the Government pact of Pedro Sánchez “leads to a destructive and divisive drift”. According to him, the government is leading citizens to confrontation and struggle between employers and workers, between some regions and others… And he has called for a nationwide referendum to determine the future of Catalonia.
The president of Mercadona, Juan Roig, has spoken along the same lines about the political situation in Spain. On the same day that Pedro Sánchez has been re-elected President of the Government, after an acrimonious investiture debate in the Congress of Deputies and several days of street protests, the Valencian businessman has highlighted the potential negative effects of political tension. He said: “They are half achieving a division among Spaniards that is not at all good for the economy or for Spain”. “If we had the same problem in Spain as in Portugal [the market in which the supermarket group is expanding], we would slow down investments”, he pointed out.
These statements were made before his intervention in a forum on the Mediterranean Corridor in Ifema (Madrid) where Roig stressed that politicians need “calm, a rhythm to follow and, above all, that they do not put obstacles in our way”. The executive defended the fact that businessmen and workers are the ones who generate “wealth and jobs”, and added that “lately what we are seeing is a political confrontation” which, he assures us, “generates conflict between Spaniards”. “If we confront Spaniards, everyone will be worse off,” said the president of one of the largest companies in the country.
Roig pointed out that there may be companies that decide to scale back their plans to grow in Spain. “If we had the same problem as we have in Spain in Portugal, where Mercadona is in full expansion, we would slow down investments, and that cannot be”. And he called for a return to a less tense climate. “We need a framework of stability for the whole country”, he concluded.
Large, medium and small businessmen from different sectors of the Valencian Community and members of the employers’ association such as Antonio Garamendi, president of the CEOE, attended the event on Thursday in Madrid to support the need for the inauguration of the Mediterranean Corridor as the main way to strengthen trade and the market on the continent. “It is a crucial infrastructure in many areas: for the economy and employment, for territorial and social cohesion and also for environmental sustainability. To have or not to have this project completed means that our future is at stake”, warned Boluda.
This movement of businessmen and employers has been calling for seven years for what is intended to be a transformative project in European trade. The objective continues to be to link the south of the Iberian Peninsula with France, but the problems in the works, mainly in the area of the Valencian Community, make it difficult for the corridor to be launched in the short term.
