The president of Seat and Cupra, Wayne Griffiths, has shown confidence this Thursday in achieving a solution that avoids frustrating the plans of the electric car of the automobile industry in Spain after the fiasco caused by the allocation, by the Ministry of Industry, of aid from European funds Next Generation to the project led by the Volkswagen group, which plans to mobilize 10,000 million in investment. “We are in the process of analyzing it. We are looking for solutions with the administrations, not only with the central government, but also with the regional governments,” said the also president of the Anfac employers’ association in Madrid, at an informative breakfast organized by the Spanish Confederation of Managers and Executives (CEDE), although it has admitted that “there is a lot of competition” between the different industrial projects. The negotiation is against the clock, since November 9 is the deadline for each industrial group to accept or not the aid assigned by the Government in its resolution of October 25.
The VW group plans to mobilize a public and private investment of 10,000 million euros, but in the allocation of aid it has only received 397.4 of a total of 877.2 million in aid. We have said that PERTE is not enoughGriffiths has stated in relation to the Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE) adopted by the Government to articulate European aid in favor of electric vehicles.
In the request of Volkswagen and Seat, support is sought for the 3,000 million necessary for the battery plant, 1,000 million for Landaben (Volkswagen-Navarra) and another 3,000 for Martorell. The plan, called Future: Fast Forward, plans to mobilize 10,000 million euros, conditional on the complete project being approved by the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism. Part of this investment will come from the 62 partners of the project, and another part will come from the Next Generation funds of the European Union.
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Griffiths has recognized that in the Volkswagen group and in the sector they were “surprised” after knowing the allocation of European funds among the different industrial projects. “They are not enough” for the VW project in Spain to go ahead. “We are very far from the potential that these funds have,” he said. “If this industry is going to be transformed in Spain, these investments must be made and they must be made now,” he urged. In any case, he has been “optimistic” about the possibility of “a solution”, before the deadline, which ends on November 9, for each industrial group to accept, or not, the resolution with the aid assigned by the Government.
“For Spain there is no plan B”, expressed the president of Seat and Cupra. “We are looking for solutions, but PERTE has to come out. Investments cannot be postponed,” he urged. “If Spain does not get on the train, it will be lost, because this train is on the move,” he emphasized.