Many years ago, a veteran journalist gave me some sage advice after misjudging the importance of a story: “When Seat sneezes, Catalonia gets constipated”. The aphorism summed up the importance that the Martorell car factory had and still has for the Catalan economy, due to the direct and indirect jobs it generates, the investments it makes and the taxes it pays. Today we should say that it is Spain that is about to catch pneumonia if the Seat-Volkswagen group paralyzes the investment it has planned in the Future Fast Forward project that mobilizes a total of 10,000 million euros. The stumbling block, say the Valencian politicians, is in the technicians of the Ministry of Industry whose exasperating slowness means that the first 700 million that had to be contributed to the construction of a gigafactory of batteries in Sagunt, do not exceed 300 million, although no one is committed more than 167. At the time, this factory was said not to be installed near Martorell due to the lack of enthusiasm of the Catalan Government. But all the display of photos on TikTok that the Government of Spain made then has gone to waste in the offices of those who do not realize the importance of these projects in the affected territories, in this case Valencia. Without exempting their political leaders from responsibility, they must not have seen the polls in which the majority in that autonomous community is one seat in the latest polls.
A situation like this is not the responsibility of an official, a minister or a government of a certain color. In Spain there is no industrial mentality, neither among many businessmen, nor among the political class, nor among some unions. The preponderance of tourism has focused on services, just as the large multinationals with a Spanish parent company are more linked to the provision of essential services (water, electricity, electricity, telecommunications) than to the manufacture of goods. The automobile was and is, perhaps, the main exception, thanks also to the responsibility exhibited on many occasions by the workers. But if the frontier of electrification is not overcome, with investments such as the one at stake, we are doomed to be a country of mileurist waiters.