What is the biggest problem that Galicia has? For the nationalists of the BNG, it is the use of place names in Spanish on RTVE. Galician cities and towns can only have their name in Galician, because Spanish is prohibited from naming them, since it is a language foreign to Galicia. And in this they agree with the PP of Manuel Fraga and Alberto Núñez Feijoo.
However, the truth is that The main problem of the Galicians, like that of the rest of the Spaniards, is the reduction of the population and aging.
The BNG, which advocates breaking with the rest of Spain, will be the second most voted party in the elections on Sunday the 18th, with 30% of the valid votes, that is, 15% of the population (abstention exceeded 51 % in 2020). If their separatist plans come true, Galician pensioners would soon stop collecting their pensions.
At the national level, the relationship between Social Security contributors and pensioners is just over two contributors for one recipient of a contributory pension. But in Galicia the ratio is 1.5 per pensioner. The region (a “nation without a State” according to Núñez Feijóo) would need about 370,000 more contributorsmore than the entire population of the province of Lugo, which in 2023 was only 323,000 people.
In Galicia There are only 12 councils that exceed two contributions per pensioner: seven in the province of La Coruña, four in Pontevedra and one in Orense.. All of them are dormitory cities. The only one that exceeds the number of 3 contributors is Ames, bordering Santiago, where the average age is close to 42 years. The second is Oroso, with 2.53; and third Arteixo, the headquarters of Inditex, with 2.36.
However, this problem does not concern either the Xunta (PP) or the opposition parties (BNG and PSdeG), since in recent years they have not applied or proposed plans to promote birth rates. Specifically, the BNG considers that it is enough to invite descendants of emigrants in Argentina or Brazil to settle in Galicia to reverse the demographic suicide.
Abortion, aging and depopulation
In 2022, almost 3,000 abortions were carried out. The demand of the left is that these be carried out in public hospitals and the Xunta has already provided more public funds to facilitate them. The three parties agree on continuing to promote abortion in a region where more than twice as many deaths occur as births on average daily: 96 deaths per 40 births.
To make the situation worse, Galicia is located in a part of Spain with aggravated demographic decline. The other three provinces with which it borders are also losing population.
Asturias It exceeded one million one hundred thousand inhabitants in 1980 and since then it has been falling until it lost the million mark, which it has recovered thanks to the settlement of foreign citizens, especially Colombians and Moroccans. This has meant losing deputies in Congress since the 90s. Now he has seven when before there were ten.
Between 1971 and 2021, the population of the province of León has been reduced by 107,895 inhabitants. Only Orense has registered a greater decrease, of 136,054. León was awarded six deputies for the 1977 elections. He lost the first deputy as early as 1988 and the second in 2015.
And in Zamora The population has decreased by 40% since 1950. In that year it reached 316,000 inhabitants and in 2023 it fell to 166,366, with no hope of stopping the collapse. The depopulation in Zamora is even greater than in Orense.
Fewer deputies
The decrease in the number of deputies has important political consequences, not so much for citizens, since deputies obey only their bosses, instead of their voters, as for the parties.
The number of deputies that Galicia had has been reduced by four, one per province. Currently it elects 23. In the general elections of July 23, the PP won 13 deputies; one below the sum of the Catalan separatists ERC (7) and Junts (7), who voted in favor of Sánchez’s investiture. This is what “the Bavaria of the PP” remains.