The Third Vice President and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, confirmed this Friday -during an interview on Antena 3- that the Government's commitment to the Volkswagen project to build a battery factory in Sagunt "continues to be total". Likewise, she added that "any issue that may have arisen will be resolved properly."
It is the first reaction of the Executive, as reported by EFE, to the news that yesterday shook the automotive industry in the Valencian Community, but also in the rest of Spain, given the possible withdrawal of the Seat-Volkswagen gigafactory project, which was called to be the great project that will promote sustainable mobility in the Mediterranean.
The head of the Consell, Ximo Puig, also insisted on the importance of the same yesterday, who upon his arrival at an act in Orihuela asked "to be respectful" and expressed his hope that "an agreement will be reached".
Puig recalled that in the Generalitat Valenciana "we will be in the best position to make it possible" and recalled that the project is a "fundamental and driving investment for the Valencian Community, but also for Spain".
The reason for the multinational is related to the delay in the PERTE aid for the electric vehicle, which has not yet been resolved. Just over a month ago at a meeting on mobility held in Barcelona, Alfonso Sancha, Vice President of Purchases at Seat and head of the Future Fast Forward project, already commented, in the presence of Minister Reyes Maroto, that "we hope that the final resolution of the PERTE arrives soon and allows the projects to become a reality”.
The possible withdrawal is also linked to the initial volume awarded to the car company, a total of 168 million euros. As this newspaper reported yesterday, sources close to Volkswagen explain that the group's supervisory board considered the first amount offered by the Government for the factory to be insufficient.
In August, the Ministry of Industry awarded 702 million euros to ten of the projects submitted to this PERTE, which represents only 24% of the total of 2,975 million euros initially allocated. The SEAT project received 167.32 million, of which 72.16 million was in the form of loans and 95.16 million euros in subsidies.
This has not been the only shock in the sector around the PERTE of the electric vehicle, as we must remember that at the end of August, Ford already renounced the European aid from the PERTE that it had requested and that had already been assigned to it, for a value of 106 million of euros. In this case, Ford framed his decision in a global context and pointed out that he had revised his perspectives for Europe and that in these, the aid did not fit.
Among the other reactions that are collected this Friday is that of the president of the Valencian employers' association, who has participated in À Punt this morning and where he has asked for "caution". Salvador Navarro, president of the CEV, has recognized that there is a complaint that he shares with the multinational.
"There is an excess of bureaucracy in the projects that are being presented and it is not only a Volkswagen problem. The reports we have is that there is low investment by the Government, since the actual execution of the PERTE is well below what what it should be," he said. For this reason, he has requested that bureaucracy be eliminated, a request that he assures is from the entire business fabric.
