José Luis Escrivá receives La Vanguardia at the new headquarters of his ministry in Madrid. The smell of walnut is perceived as soon as you cross the door that gives access to a diaphanous space, full of light and stained glass windows with formidable views of the shore of the renovated Manzanares. It has more similarities with the spaces where startups usually work than with the ancient concept of ministry associated with the concrete millstones of Paseo de la Castellana. New building, new position and this will be the first year in which a specific minister for Digital Transformation in Spain walks through the Mobile World Congress, which opens today in Barcelona.
What do you expect from this edition, which, like its work plan, has artificial intelligence as one of its strategic points?
El Mobile is the great world forum for digitization, but above all for the exchange of opinions. I have a full schedule of meetings, events and multilateral panels with private and public actors and then many bilateral meetings with other ministers and with large representatives of the industry.
What more immediate challenges does this new technology require?
Artificial intelligence (AI) will transform our lives. There is no doubt about that. We have a strategy based on two pillars. One, to prepare the country for the generally positive impact that AI will have, which will transform many economic activities at an impressive pace. At the same time, it carries risks and there are activities, as European legislation has already done, that must be prohibited. A debate is needed in which all social actors and citizen representatives participate to set the limits.
Some voices in the sector say that Europe and Spain are rushing with these limits and this may have an impact on the arrival of investors.
No, I don't get that impression. In fact, this very week I signed a protocol with Microsoft, the world leader in artificial intelligence applications, and it feels very comfortable with the regulatory framework we have, as evidenced by the investment of 2 billion announced. The big private promoters of AI are absolutely aware that it is necessary to set limits to a technology with such a capacity to influence our lives.
You also announced a cybersecurity law. What will it regulate?
We want to institutionalize the current cyber security mechanisms, which work well, as evidenced by the fact that Spain is the third European country in cyber security indices, and give them the status of law, something we will address in the second semester. In the meantime, we work together with the National Cyber Security Institute (Incibe) to address other relevant issues. For example, the 017 helpline number, in addition to being used to report cyberattacks, we have just enabled it to also provide advice on issues related to the cyber protection of minors, parental controls, suspected bullying, etc.
You are now leading the deployment of the most important Perte linked to European funds, that of chips, endowed with 12,500 million. After more than a year, only two public calls for a total of 105 million are known. Why so long?
I would not speak in any case of delay, on the contrary, I would invite you to see how long it takes other countries to mature similar operations. We have already deployed almost 500 million linked to this Perte.
9 billion to start two chip factories. Only one interested party is known, Broadcom, which has not disclosed where it intends to set up. What do investors demand?
Spain is a very attractive country, with excellent connectivity and green energy, an important element because all facilities associated with AI, such as data centers, need significant amounts of energy and a very well-trained human capital. In the first stage, we are prioritizing training. As for investments, we bet on those linked to innovation, which is where there is added value and on which an ecosystem can be built. The one-size-fits-all factory is only a possibility and you don't necessarily have to go in that direction. For example, the installation in Spain, in Malaga, of IMEC – a world reference center for microelectronics – is more closely linked to the qualification and pre-fabrication of chips and there is only one of its kind in the world, in Belgium As far as Broadcom is concerned, a series of technical requirements are just being defined and from there the location of the project will be decided.
The European Commission has approved the merger of Orange and MásMóvil with conditions. How do you rate this decision?
Unlike what the Commission proposes, we do not see any competition problem in the telecommunications sector in Spain, and we do not see the need to establish remedies or conditions in terms of spectrum transfer. The Commission wanted to bring the transfer of spectrum up to 90 megahertz (MHz), and we have worked to reduce the amount to 60 MHz, which was what the parties had presented, and the Commission understood it that way.
The operation is in his field. Will the Spanish Government give the authorization without further conditions?
No, authorizations are not a simple procedure at all. This operation, together with another parallel one [the purchase of Vodafone España by the British fund Zegona], affects almost 50% of the telecommunications market and more than two-thirds of the total radio spectrum allocated for communications mobile All this, and the fact that it is a strategic sector with critical infrastructures, means that we have to look at these operations with absolute attention and, without a doubt, from a strategic point of view.
Could it lower the spectrum requirements?
No, this is something that is already agreed upon and will not be changed. The aspect that we are working with the companies is that in the resolution that is approved by the Council of Ministers, a series of investment commitments and the sustainability of these investments with an eye on strategic areas, such as the deployment of fiber and 5G, as proposed by the European Commission after publishing the white paper that establishes the basis for the future Digital Network Act.
In what amount?
This will be seen.
At what point is the entry of the Saudi Telecom fund into Telefónica and the Sepi purchases?
There is nothing new in this matter.
Another pending matter is to identify risk providers for investments in telecommunications. Will there be a list of banned companies?
Spain has already set a position regarding this and we see no need to publish any explicit list. There will be certain deployments of critical elements of 5G networks on which we will have to give an opinion, but we will do so by studying each specific case.
Vodafone and Huawei have appealed against the granting of rural 5G licenses because it indirectly identifies Huawei as a risk provider and favors Telefónica. Are these clauses harming competition?
The rural 5G aid programs incorporate an obligation clause on the beneficiaries to replace the infrastructures deployed with these aids at their expense, in case they had been deployed with suppliers that are declared high risk. This responds to the desire of the European Commission that none of the money from the EU be allocated to high-risk suppliers, but this declaration has not been made in Spain, therefore, we consider that there is no impact on the competition
Will the other leg of your ministry, the one in charge of the civil service, cancel the possibility of requiring an appointment to contact the administration?
The starting point must be a regulatory change so that we ensure that it is effectively guaranteed that citizens have the right to communicate and interact with the public administration through the channel they choose. This requires a regulatory change in article 14 of the Common Administrative Procedure law that includes the express prohibition of the mandatory nature of the appointment.
Will the number of officials increase?
The year 2024 will be the last in which the replacement rate will be in force, which has perpetuated the pre-existing structures without taking into account the new needs of public administrations. We must move from a short-term vision to a medium-term perspective, with strategic planning and evaluation of public policies. For this reason, the new model must make it possible to determine what type of officials and what profiles are needed. The model, which will have to be agreed upon with the social agents, will allow more flexibility for the different departments to propose their human resources policy.
How do you rate the recent judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU on temporary public workers?
The high degree of temporary employment in the public sector has three fundamental causes: the replacement rate as a mechanism for determining the workforce in the public administration in the absence of strategic planning in human resources; the lack of regularity in calls for public employment and the slowness of the processes, and, finally, the dissonance between human resource needs in public services and real funding capacity. We are acting on each of these causes to prevent that large stock of temporaries from being generated again.
