Marca Andorra Observatory: horizon 2027, a new opportunity!

Part I

After an intense electoral process, we begin a new legislature in which we hope the General Council and Government will know how to successfully face the important challenges that are presented to them, both those inherited, and which have already been the subject of an intense debate, and the new ones that will happen in the future. For what we were able to experience at the beginning of the previous legislature, we are at a crucial moment, because beyond electoral programs and promises, now it is time to set up a Government team and a work plan or a road map, although with so many people, ideologies and interest it should not be easy at all.

In the previous legislature, a lot of work was undoubtedly done. Also, fate put us to the test, especially from March 2020, and despite everything, authorities, institutions, and citizens knew how to react like they had never had before. A few months later, in the summer of 2020, a Government stimulated by the instinct of survival and the spirit of overcoming, presented a very ambitious strategic plan, known as Horizon 23 and which included a whole series of actions. Despite having been executed for the most part, it contemplated challenges pending to be met and will have to be worked on from now on, together with everything else that has been added to it in recent years and which, in fact, must include the new roadmap for the 2023-2027 legislature.

And now it’s time to wonder if we will have a new Horizon 27 plan or something similar! There is no doubt that Andorra has a new opportunity to set up a differential strategy and that will help us, not only to build a solid country model with guarantees, but to resolve with solvency the main evils that affect our citizens, and at the same time project to the outside world so that they know us a little better. This has not only a positive, but a transcendental impact on the arrival of quality and non-massive tourism that we all expect, from a qualified foreign investment with no or low negative social impact or of a talent that really brings the added value that allows us to develop knowledge as a distinguishing feature of a society that bets on training, research, digitalization, and new technologies.

To activate this ambitious plan, however, a very important decision must be made: either continue with a traditional model of governing, the old, the conventional one, with that orderly and effective way of doing things, or we opt for a bolder model, more adapted to the new time to come, more sustainable, but at the same time more modern and technological, more communicative and above all more competitive. And why more competitive? Well, in order for our economy to make the leap in quality that allows us to overcome such urgent issues as the improvement of purchasing power, access to a home in decent conditions or the improvement of the future expectations of pensions, it is necessary to be competitive in the international context and not only to be competitive but to share it and communicate it effectively to our closest and most distant environments.

At this point, if I may take a step back and return to the electoral campaign where, despite not being discussed openly, several political parties contemplated the need to work on the concept of the “Marca Andorra”, whether from a tourist point of view or as a dissemination or international communication strategy. And if they considered it, they must have thought that there was something to improve, right? And if I go back even further, we arrive at March 2019

where we find in the well-known “drawer of history” a magnificent project, which with the corresponding update and with the variations deemed appropriate, would be a very useful tool to contribute to the cause of our country. From my point of view, however, such an effect would only be possible if we opted for the “more daring model” over the traditional one. Difficult decision, but sooner or later we will have to be brave and not only to “react” to adversity, too late in many times, but to “anticipate” even for once and be pioneers as we have already done tried to be with legislative initiatives of the past legislature and which, although timidly, have positioned us by generating minimal expectations that have had their positive effects. So let’s rescue the “Marca Andorra Project” and position our country where it deserves?

There is no magic formula that allows us to identify the best way to position a country internationally, but there is no doubt that there are countries that are better positioned than others and that this helps them to prestige their model of jurisdiction and to get income. Such positioning obeys a strategy, which makes all the sense in the world for an ad hoc body to be responsible for it. The body absolutely distinct from the Government and the state promotional offices and which in a transversal way develops the construction of a message that is based on the best attributes of the country and communicates and disseminates it through the most effective means, in order to give the greatest possible visibility to that model offered. It also expects the maximum response from those to whom it is directed.

This body coordinates with all economic agents, institutions, and citizens, and also moves internationally trying to find out what the potentially interested people expect from that country, and thus preparing and projecting concrete actions that in the long run term are expected to give the expected fruits. The impulse of a “country brand organization” as described is an example of what I previously described as “being bold” and this is nothing less than what, in my humble opinion, Andorra needs to take a quality step forward. The government has multiple very tough responsibilities to face, and it is obvious that it needs the help of an organization and a differentiating strategy, but which is at the same time aligned with the values that the country’s highest institutions propose.

To be continued…

By Pere Augé, CEO and Founding Partner of Augé Holding Group

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