The vicissitudes of recent months linked to Catalan independence, especially in the period between last October's referendum and the recent vote for the renewal of the Parliament of the autonomous community of Barcelona and its surroundings, have cost the Spanish economy around 1 billion euros .
To estimate it is the Economy Minister Luis de Guindos, in an interview with Cadena Ser radio where he argued that the slowdown in growth in the Catalan area in the last quarter of 2017, mainly due to the independence turmoil and its more or less direct consequences (the transfer of some important banks and companies , for example), could be worth a billion euros: “Catalonia – said de Guindos – had a higher growth than the country, it has always been an engine for our economy but in the last period it has almost become a burden ”.
The climate of uncertainty, not to mention civil war at times, is therefore bringing to its knees a region that produces at full capacity almost a fifth of the entire Spanish GDP, 19%, a proportion comparable to that of Lombardy in Italy. In any case, De Guindos reassured that the recovery would continue throughout the country, arguing that in 2018 the central bank expects growth of 2,4%, despite the Catalan crisis.
