The sixth edition of Forum La Toja-Vínculo Atlántico, which will be held from October 3 to 5 at the Eurostars hotel-spa on the Galician island of the same name, will be the scene of the first public intervention since the arrival in Spain of the winning candidate of the elections in Venezuela, Edmundo González Urrutia, as announced this Saturday by Amancio López Seijas, founder of this forum and president of Fundación La Toja and the Hotusa Group. In the Converses program of COPE Catalonia and Andorra, with the participation of ABC, it was also announced that, as every year, “King Felipe VI will preside over the inauguration of the Forum on Thursday, October 3, while it remains to be confirmed if the President of the Government Pedro Sánchez will attend the closing on Friday 5.
The economist and speaker of the Forum Antón Costas explained that one of the questions that will be very present in all the debates of this edition is that of competitiveness, following the report by Mario Draghi recently presented by the former president of the Bank central European. (BCE), a document which, according to Costas, “will become a European Bible in the decades to come”. The importance, according to him, lies in the fact that “for the first time, we are not talking about structural reforms linked to wage devaluations, but rather about the integration of knowledge and skills of the workforce which improve productivity”.
No dilemma in the welfare state
Costas pointed out that this type of approach to European challenges is already formulated in terms of “the dilemma of how far we want to grow and what degree of sustainability we want to maintain”, which, according to the economist, results “totally new, because it is not a question of opposing competitiveness to the European social state, as if it were a contradiction”. On the contrary, he asserts that “to progress in competitiveness, we must maintain the welfare state without reducing wages, improving productivity through knowledge”.
At this point, Costas, who will speak alongside former presidents Felipe González, Mariano Rajoy and the Portuguese António Costa, future president of the European Council, stressed, in the same vein as Draghi, that “maintaining the European social model and high levels of protection and redistribution is non-negotiableeven if it is put to the test more as our societies age.
Common debt for massive investments
The European Union is facing an “existential challenge” and could lose its “raison d’être” if it does not react quickly, warns the former president of the ECB and “once saved the euro” in his report on competitiveness, a careful and dark diagnosis. on the situation of the European economy after years during which it developed in autopilot mode without taking decisions to adapt it to the challenges. Some challenges that Mario Draghi identifies in three areas: a new European industrial strategy to address slowing growth engines, energy prices and competition in a more unstable world.
Draghi’s roadmap proposes issuing common public debt and investing an additional 800 billion euros each year to make up for lost ground. According to Costas, “Looking at what the Biden federal administration is doing in the United States, the proposal for massive investments in the EU is small amounts”. According to the Spanish economist who also chairs the Economic and Social Council, “the question of debt depends on where you spend it. If you do it to grow and improve competitiveness, the investment itself will pay off early or later.”
No wave of protectionism
Costas also declared “not seeing a wave of protectionism, but rather a correction of part of international politics and a correlation of balances between the great powers.” He recalled that this had already happened in the 1990s with “this false idea that the Japanese had invaded the West, notably when Japanese investors bought Rockefeller Center in New York.” Then the Land of the Rising Sun was asked to autonomously regulate its own exports, which in some cases were subsidized by the state, or else customs duties or quotas would be applied to them. Japan solved the problem by setting up factories in Western countries. The Spanish economist points out that something similar is happening in China, which has large production capacity. This therefore justifies, “China is asked to show self-restraint or taxes will be applied or it will also start setting up factories in the West as happened with Japan”
This edition of the La Toja Forum is the first organized entirely without Josep Piquepromoter of the event, after his death on April 6 last year, a few months before the Forum was held. Despite this absence, the founder of the event, Amancio López Seijas, affirmed that “his approach” is maintainedwhile trying to make it “more global” and seeking its “internationalization”, with speakers from different parts of the world.
Culture war against authoritarianism
López Seijas recalled that the Forum “was conceived in 2019, when totalitarianism and populism had already arrived and“He was born to defend Atlantic values, which include the individual rights of peoples, liberal market democracy, redistribution, the defense of the Enlightenment, which ultimately made Europe and America an oasis now comprising risks.” In conclusion, “The more polarization there is, the more this forum is necessary in which Antón Costas, Jordi Alberich and our late Josep Piqué were present from the beginning.
Regarding polarization, Costas argued that “The cultural war that we already knew in the 30s and 40s of the last century between liberal democracies and communist regimes is back”who fought to defend systems that they self-proclaimed were more capable of offering progress and collective prosperity to their societies, “as China did by lifting millions of citizens out of poverty without democracy”. From now on, the economist assures that “authoritarian regimes say that by abandoning liberal values, they better guarantee prosperity and progress”. In this way, “we must prepare for the cultural battle,” Costas concludes.
Prize to Josep Borrell
Alberich, member of the organizing committee of the event, announced that in this edition the tribute prize to Josep Piqué will be awarded to the still high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and security policy, Joseph Borrellwho will be present at the Forum. “He showed that he had the courage and audacity that citizens demand from politicians,” explained Alberich, who highlighted Borrell’s good work in “extraordinarily difficult” times and also “because it is difficult to find someone who has had more European responsibilities than him”since he was previously President of the European Parliament.
López Seijas, Costas and Alberich enjoyed consolidation of the La Toja Forum and they highlighted “the current global context” in which this edition will take place, with recent important events like the European elections, the upcoming November 5 elections in the United States, active wars like the Russian invasion of Ukraine or the Middle East or the situation that Spain is experiencing in terms of regional financing and immigration.
